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Souls in Hell 



SOULS IN HELL 


A Mystery of the Unseen 


BY 

John O’Neill ’ 


NICHOLAS L. BROWN 

NEW YORK, :: 1924 


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Copyright, 1923 

By 

NICHOLAS L. BROWN 


Printed in U. S. A. 

OtC 15 1923 i 0 

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TO 


JIMMY 

A BRAVE SOLDIER 








THE PROLOGUE 


It was the first time I had seen him. 

I had gone to the comer drug-store for the double 
purpose of quenching my thirst with a lemon phos¬ 
phate (which I needed badly, being as dry as the 
proverbial lime-kiln), and waiting for the train which 
would take me back to the city. Being able to see the 
train signals for about a mile down the track, I pre¬ 
ferred killing time in the drug-store enjoying my 
phosphate than sitting on a hard bench, and tiring 
my eyes looking at the raw pea-green walls of the al¬ 
most deserted railroad station, which in the oppressive 
heat smelled of new varnish and stale milk cans. 

It was more restful, too, in the drug-store. 

Shaded by the large plane trees at the edge of the 
sidewalk, and by its own striped awnings, compared 
with the outside blistering heat and brilliant sunshine 
it was a veritable oasis. The pleasant smells of drugs, 
perfumery, soaps, talcums, and all the other untabu¬ 
lated odors that pervade a drug-store which make it a 
desirable place on a hot day, soothed my tired nerves. 
The drowsy hum of the few persons there—who used 
the store, apparently, as a meeting-place for the ex¬ 
change of local gossip as well as for the buying of 
things—made a droning obligato to the tinkle of the 
soda and ice-cream glasses. 

7 


8 


SOULS IN HELL 


After the bustle and feverish activity of the city, 
the feeling of languor was delightful. It seemed hard¬ 
ly possible that this place, with its dolce far niente air,' 
was but a short hour’s ride from the big ant-hill— 
New York—with its teeming millions working day and 
night, always in a hurry, always on the go, always 
trying to get ahead of the one in front (and falling 
over their own feet in their haste), hustling even in 
their hours of recreation; it was hardly credible; it 
seemed like a day-dream. 

I was on the point of saying to the soda-counter 
clerk what a relief it was to come to such a quiet spot 
when the hum of the subdued tones—which were af¬ 
fecting me like a lullaby—was suddenly broken by a 
high-pitched feminine voice exclaiming, “There he 
goes now! There he is! See him ?” 

In a moment all was hubbub. 

Everybody rushed to the end of the store; even the 
drug clerk, who, up to that time, had been doing his 
work'in a listless, tired fashion, straightened up as if 
galvanized and craned his neck in the effort to see. 
Turning to discover the reason for all the sudden ex¬ 
citement I saw that almost everybody in the place was 
crowded at the window at the far end, attracted by 
something outside; which, apparently, had evoked the 
exclamations of one of the women. Curious to know 
the cause, I joined the crowd at the window. 

I was just in time to catch sight of some policemen; 
four walking in pairs, one pair behind the other. Be¬ 
tween the first pair was a tall young man dressed in 
a well-cut suit of civilian clothes—the coat closely 
buttoned, walking with an athletic stride, his arms 
swinging free at his sides. Although he was in sight 


SOULS IN HELL 


9 


but a few moments, for he and the officers turned the 
corner to go down the side street, the young fellow 
made a great impression on me; an impression I could 
not, at the moment account for. Slim of figure with 
square shoulders and flat back, his head held proudly 
erect, with the eyes gazing steadily to the front as if he 
were on parade, the supple swing, the springy walk, 
all gave him the air of a military officer; which was 
in marked contrast to that of the countrified-looking 
policemen in their ill-fitting uniforms. He, who looked 
as though he might be a leader of men, seemed 
strangely out of place in their company—as a pris¬ 
oner. 

I wondered who he was. 

When he had passed out of sight I turned to go 
back to the soda counter, and as I threaded my way 
through the groups of women who were expressing 
their sympathy at his plight I passed two men, one 
being,—as I guessed from his lordly ‘I am so-and-so’ 
manner,—a ‘somebody’ in the little town. The other, 
a small man clothed in a rusty suit and a deferential 
humility, spoke as I approached, and I caught the 
words, “Too bad, too bad! Such a fine looking young 
chap too.” He shook his head dolefully as he glanced 
up at the big man to see if his sentiments were in ac¬ 
cord with those of his pompous companion. “I’m afraid 
it’s the electric chair for him. Don’t you think so?” 

The other—the pompous somebody who looked like 
one of those men who dearly like to take the chair at 
a country political meeting, and give the impression 
that he is in touch with the inner circle of the local 
political machine—rolled his big cigar lazily from the 
corner of his mouth t© the centre and back again, 


10 


SOULS IN HELL 


taking a deep breath during the performance; then 
delivered himself of an opinion, half muttered, half 
growled: 

“Caught with the gun in his hand, red-handed as 
one might say, what can he expect?” He tilted his 
hat with his fat finger as he glanced sideways from 
under his heavy lids at a newcomer. 

“Certainly looks pretty black for him,” the small 
man agreed. “What do they say down at the Town 
Hall?” he inquired with a solicitous air. “Do they 
think he has any chance of getting off?” 

I had paused within sound of their voices, pretend¬ 
ing to be interested in the bottles of perfume taste¬ 
fully arranged on the stand in the centre of the store, 
for I was curious to hear the answer. I had to wait 
until the heavy jowled ‘somebody’ leisurely took the 
cigar from his lips, and looked at it with an air of 
deliberation; evidently he believed in making his ut¬ 
terances as weighty as possible. 

“Well . . . the old man—the Chief—told me yester¬ 
day that the boy’s lawyer hasn’t much hopes for him,” 
he grunted finally. “He thinks he’ll be lucky to get 
a verdict of manslaughter. Darned lucky!” 

“Gee! Is that so? Even that’ll be a hard blow for 
Cogan and his wife,” said the small man, looking glum. 

The scraps of conversation had sharpened my cur¬ 
iosity, but had not enlightened me much until the last 
remark—which gave me the clue; then I realized that 
the young fellow was Jack Waller now on trial for 
the murder of the matinee idol, Benton the actor, 
only recently returned from a tour in Europe. 

The affair had created a big sensation in New York 
City, especially in the theatrical world where Benton 


SOULS IN HELL 


11 


had been a well-known figure; while to this little sub¬ 
urban colony of commuters—artists, literary folk, 
and business men who had put Malvern Beach (as it 
was called) on the map—the tragedy had come like 
a bolt out of the clear sky, more particularly because 
it affected two of the most prominent and best liked in 
the colony—Tom Cogan and his handsome wife. 

As it was imperative that my wife should have quiet 
surroundings,—for she was a bundle of frayed nerves 
(the not unnatural result of living in a noisy apart¬ 
ment house where the bachelor who lived above us came 
home ‘lit up’, and moved the furniture around in the 
wee sma’ hours, and where the woman who cleaned 
his apartment dropped flatirons on the kitchen floor 
in the daytime)—I had taken the day off to run 
down from the city to this pretty suburban place for 
the purpose of looking over a couple of bungalows 
with a view to renting one. When the real estate 
agent pointed out to me the numerous advantages of 
the place he made much of the fact that most of the 
commuters were, like myself, of the professional class, 
so that I could soon make plenty of friends and feel 
at home; but it did not occur to me at the time that 
this was the same little town where the mysterious 
murder of Benton the actor had been committed. 

Although I had more than a nodding acquaintance 
with Cogan, and had read all about the case in the 
newspapers, I had not realized that this was the place . 
I suppose my mind was so occupied with the necessity 
of closing the real estate deal as quickly as possible— 
for I was very busy on a ‘rush* order for posters for 
a Motion Picture Film Company, and couldn’t well 
spare the time I was taking—that I did not remember 


12 


SOULS IN HELL 


the connection of the town with the crime; now, of 
course, the whole affair flashed into my mind. 

“So that’s Jack Waller, eh?” I remarked to the 
clerk when I got back to the counter. 

He nodded affirmatively. “Yep, that’s young Wal¬ 
ler.” 

“He is a fine looking young chap. Doesn’t look 
much like a murderer.” 

“As fine a young fellow as ever stepped in shoe 
leather. Often came in here and chatted with me. A 
perfect gentleman. A Jim Dandy!” He jerked out the 
words as he wiped the counter. 

“Doesn’t seem possible that a chap of his type 
would commit such a cold-blooded crime, unless it was 
done in the heat of anger or in self-defence,” I said; 
wondering if I were right in the favorable impression 
Waller had made on me. 

“Everybody in this town feels the same as you do, 
sir, and they’d be glad to see him get off scot-free; 
but”- 

He paused in his wiping, and, with a doubtful 
shake of his head, pursed up his lips significantly. 

“But what?” I asked. 

“Why . . . everything is dead against him—the 
evidence I mean,” he explained, “and . . . blest if I 
can see how he’s going to get out of it. If it de¬ 
pended on the people here I’d bet he’d be leg-free be¬ 
fore tomorrow morning. Nearly everyone knows him 
round here, and they all say he’s a fine, everyday 
kind of feller, no swelled head or anything like that; 
just a plain, clean American lad.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


13 


“And you say that the evidence is all against him?” 

He nodded, then turned his head quickly toward the 
side window. 

“Excuse me, sir, but didn’t you say you were waiting 
for the New York train?” he asked, turning to me. 

“Yes. Is she signalled?” I had, for the moment, 
completely forgotten the train. I looked to answer 
my own question, and saw the warning cloud of smoke 
halfway down the track. 

“Well, let us hope young Waller will get off,” I 
said, as I started toward the door, waving my hand 
in farewell. 

“I sure hope he will,” responded the clerk, nod- 
ding a goodbye. 


In the train I tried to recall what the newspapers 
had said about the case and its principal figure— 
Jack Waller. Although, as I said, it had created a 
sensation at the time, the kaleidoscopic life of the big 
city is so crowded with incidents, each day bringing 
new surprises, one is likely to forget the details of 
matters even more prominent than the usual. At about 
that time, too, I was putting in about eighteen hours 
a day, working at top speed, and the only chance I 
got of reading the news was the hasty glance I gave 
the headlines at breakfast time; so my knowledge of 
the details of the case was very scanty. 

I did remember that Jack Waller, who was an avia¬ 
tor attached to the American Escadrille, had volun- 


14 


SOULS IN HELL 


teered for some extra hazardous job. At the moment 
I couldn’t for the life of me recall just what it was; 
but it was so successful, and meant so much to the 
French Army—in a particularly dangerous situation 
at that time—that he received a citation and the Croix 
de Guerre. I remembered that although his machine 
had been riddled with bullets, putting his engine out 
of commission, he had been lucky enough to get back 
to his own lines with nothing worse than one of the 
bones of his left fore-arm splintered; nothing serious, 
but sufficient to put him hors de combat for a few 
weeks. He had returned to America to spend his en¬ 
forced holiday with his half-sister and her husband 
(“big Tom” Cogan, the Editor of the Manhattan 
Short Story Magazine) ; a couple well known in this 
little town of Malvern, and so highly esteemed that 
the community felt the blow that had fallen on the 
editor and his wife as being almost personal; as if 
the misfortune had come to one of their own kith and 
kin. 

The metropolitan newspapers at the time were full 
of Waller’s exploit; which was the latest of a series 
of what appeared to normal men as foolhardy ven¬ 
tures. “Crazy Waller,” and “The Crazy Kid,” his 
pals in the aviation squadron had nicknamed him, and 
the sobriquets seemed well deserved; for even in his 
college days he, so it seemed, sought opportunities to 
do the most foolhardy and dangerous “stunts,” which, 
strange to say, he generally carried out successfully. 
He laughingly told me, later on, that the seemingly 
impossible things are really the easiest to do, for the 
simple reason—so he claimed—that men, thinking 
they are impossible, do not provide the means for pre- 


SOULS IN HELL 


15 


venting their accomplishment; which bit of philoso¬ 
phy (unless I miss my guess) he got from a certain 
well-known adventurer—a soldier of fortune—whose 
feet had scraped the brass foot-rail, and whose face 
was familiar to every bartender, in every drinking 
place on Broadway. I surmise that it was really Jack 
Waller’s modest way of minimizing his own daring. 
Be that as it may: his career during his college days 
had made him such a conspicuous and popular figure 
on Broadway and in the various clubs, that when he 
arrived here from France the newspapers wrote him 
up in great style; heralded him as America’s premier 
ace, and featured him lavishly in the photogravure 
section of the Sunday Supplements. 

At an age—twenty years old—when a little extra 
conceit of one’s personality and ability may be ex¬ 
pected, and forgiven—especially after such prowess 
as he had shown,—his outstanding characteristics were 
his modest bearing and absence of “swank;” which 
was rather astonishing after all the adulation show¬ 
ered on him. Indeed, the more encomiums he received, 
the more modest and retiring he became. 

When I met and got to know him later on, those 
were the traits that impressed me more than anything 
else in his character. There seemed to be a depth in 
his nature that, as I surmised, he himself had not 
fathomed; a certain stratum, as it were, which had 
been only slightly cognized; a strange streak of mys¬ 
ticism—a vein of pure gold in the common clay—hid¬ 
den away from his everyday acquaintances, which was 
uncovered only now and then to those nearest and 
dearest to him. 

So far as his appearance was concerned he was 


16 


SOULS IN HELL 


not different from hundreds of other college men of 
athletic proclivities, and duplicates of him could be 
easily found in any of our colleges and universities; 
especially among the men given to playing football, 
in which game Waller was a star performer. 

Clean cut, about six feet two inches, built on the 
lines of a greyhound, lithe as a panther, he was a 
good specimen of the type popular illustrators and 
fashion advertisement designers take as representa¬ 
tive of the ideal young American—full of high-strung, 
nervous energy; full of “pep” and “ginger,” as one 
of the newspaper “write-up” artists phrased it. 

A bundle of whipcord and nerves, he certainly 
looked trained to the minute, and carried himself with 
the easy grace of the athlete. His tanned face, thinned 
almost to bone and sinew, indicated a high order of 
mentality; belonging, as the phrenologists would say, 
to the mental-motive temperament. From under 
straight dark brows, grey eyes that had fearlessly faced 
death in various guises looked out frankly and unwaver¬ 
ingly, with an occasional gleam of the high adven¬ 
turous spirit behind them. A finely modelled nose with 
sensitive nostrils, a firm lipped mouth, and an over- 
protuberant chin completed his face; which, usually, 
was as impassive as, an Indian’s—due to his hair-rais¬ 
ing experiences at the front,—and which gave him an 
air of reserve power much beyond his years. 

And this was the young fellow I had seen from the 
drug-store window, walking between two officers of 
the law! 

Life, certainly, is full of surprises—I reflected. It 
seemed strange indeed that this young man, only a 


SOULS IN HELL 


17 


short time ago acclaimed and applauded as a national 
hero who had given his fighting ability to the service 
of others and their liberty, should now be fighting 
for his own life and liberty; fighting against the ac¬ 
cusation of having committed a premeditated, cold¬ 
blooded murder. It seemed incredible! 

Considering his national fame and popularity, it 
was not to be wondered at that his innocence should 
be proclaimed, and in no uncertain voice, by all who 
knew him or only knew of him; and the progress of 
the case was watched day after day not only by his 
fellow countrymen but by hundreds in the far-flung 
battle line in Europe. Everyone, from the highest to 
the lowest, hoped for his acquittal but . . . and it was 
a big BUT . . . there was the damning evidence! 

& 


During the following year, my wife and I got quite 
chummy with the Cogans. 

Through an order I received to make some illustra¬ 
tions for the magazine of which Cogan was the edi¬ 
tor, I met “big Tom” more frequently than before, 
for he would run up to my place at noon and we 
would have a quiet luncheon in the cozy French res¬ 
taurant around the corner, afterwards returning to 
my studio; he to smoke a cigar while watching me 
making my little pastel color schemes for my posters; 
he “chewing the rag”—as he laughingly put it— 
while I slaved to pay for my landlord’s gasoline,—as 
I grimly put it. 


18 


SOULS IN HELL 


During these chats in which we aired our respec¬ 
tive opinions on everything under the sun,—from the 
low state of art and literature to the high cost of graft 
to the “common peepul;” from philosophy to the la¬ 
test exposure of our politicians,—we discovered that 
we were kindred spirits in more ways than one. 

When the pressure of work, which frequently kept 
me in the studio night after night, eased up a bit, my 
wife and I took advantage of the lull to visit the Co- 
gans’ home in answer to a long-standing and pressing 
invitation. There we were introduced to Mrs. Cogan 
and their little boy, Harold, a cute little shaver of 
about five years of age, with a mop of golden hair 
framing a chubby face which seemed to be always 
smiling at something hidden away in his own little 
noddle. It was easily seen that the child held his 
mother’s heart in his little plump hands, and that she 
w r as—as she confessed—simply crazy over the boy. 

My wife and Mrs. Cogan took to each other imme¬ 
diately (which was all the more strange as my wife 
dislikes women intensely; her favorite expression re¬ 
garding her own sex being, “I’m glad I don’t have to 
marry a woman!”), and, when after our first visit 
and we were leaving for our own bungalow, one of 
the party remarked that it did not seem like meeting 
for the first time; we all seemed to be old friends 
who, after a separation, had again met and were hav¬ 
ing a reunion. 

“Ye6 indeed it does,” Mrs. Cogan averred. “Don’t 
you think so?” she asked, turning to my wife. 

The sharer of my joys and sorrows made a signi¬ 
ficant moue at me, then held up a warning finger to 
Mrs. Cogan. 


SOULS IN HELL 


19 


‘Don’t start this man off, please,” she advised, 
gently pushing me toward the door. “The subject of 
reincarnation is his particular hobby, his pet obses¬ 
sion; and if you give him half a chance he will stay 
here all night telling you what he knows of his for¬ 
mer lives and what he went through in ancient Egypt, 
Greece, and . . . where else did you live, Jack?” The 
last bit with a grin at me. 

“Is that so?” Mrs. Cogan asked with a smile of 
delighted surprise on her face. “Well, that is good 
news; for, do you know, although I must confess I 
used to think all that was due to a superheated imag¬ 
ination, certain things and incidents have made me 
change my viewpoint; and now I am not only inter¬ 
ested but want to find out all I can about it. So . . .” 
turning to me with a glad smile, “when you have the 
time to spare, and the inclination to add to my fund 
of information, do not hesitate to start the ball aroll- 
ing. You appear to be an eminently sane person, so 
make the date soon; you will be as welcome as the 
flowers of spring.” 

It does not often happen that I get a chance to 
laugh at my wife’s expense, so this time I took full 
advantage of the opportunity. Woman-like she had 
to have the last word, and so got back at me with: 

“All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. When 
I am kept awake with one of my nervous headaches I 
generally ask him a question about one of his past 
lives; that’s all that is necessary to start him off, and 
in a few minutes I am fast asleep. It is one of the 
finest soporifics I know; beats sulphonal or trional 
hollow.” 

A» we had to get home sometime, I had to eontent 


20 


SOULS IN HELL 


myself with “big Tom’s” hearty slap on my shoulder 
and his) stage whisper, “ ‘A prophet is not without 

honor’-you know, old chappie,” followed by a 

handshake and his famous booming laugh; a laugh 
which in resonance would do credit to a foghorn! 

Our acquaintance soon ripened into a close friend¬ 
ship, and it was only natural that the tragedy should 
come into the conversation. 

I gathered from Cogan (and also from Tracy, the 
short-story writer) some of the data of the circum¬ 
stances that led up to the killing of Benton; which, 
combined with what Mrs. Cogan told my wife in their 
heart-to-heart talks—things that did not come out in 
the trial, helped me to piece most of the story together, 
but not all. There were blank spots in the narrative 
which needed filling in, but none of the principals 
could give me any aid in the matter; for the simple 
reason they did not know how. Even Tracy could do 
but little in that direction, as he had only the impres¬ 
sionable temperament of the psychic without the ana¬ 
lytical training of the occultist. 

One afternoon, Cogan and Tracy came to my stu¬ 
dio to talk over some illustrations I was making for 
a story the latter had written for Cogan’s magazine. 
An argument arose over some detail or other, I forget 
just what,—some trifle in the background of one of 
the drawings,—and to convince Cogan that he was 
wrong I looked for the book in which I had found 
my data. As often happens in a busy man’s studio, 
especially an illustrator’s—mine at all events—where 
in the rush of working under pressure things are for 
the time thrown higgledy-piggledy (a costume over 
th« back of a chair, the lounge crowded with boots, 


SOULS IN HELL 


SI 

leggings, artificial flowers, a suit of khaki, another 
chair loaded down with books of reference, a rifle and 
bayonet, and other “props”), I couldn’t discover the 
particular book I wanted. Cogan in his blustery, jo¬ 
vial way offered to help find the book. Giving him a 
description of its binding, I suggested that he should 
glance over the books in the bookcase, thinking that 
by chance it might have been returned to one of the 
shelves. 

“Say, old man,” he ejaculated in an astonished 
voice after a few moments of searching, “are you a 
Spiritualist?” 

“A Spiritualist?” I repeated, taken by surprise by 
the question. “No, I am not a Spiritualist. What 
makes you ask?” 

“Why . . . all this truck here. I didn’t know you 
went in for this kind of stuff!” 

“What the dickens are you raving about, Cogan? 
What stuff do you mean?” My mind was so full of 
the work in hand, for the instant I did not grasp the 
gist of his meaning. 

“Why . . . er . . . this stuff! ‘ Clairvoyance* *Way 
of Initiation * ‘Ancient Wisdom / *Occult Science 
Wow, wow!” he exploded. “Every second book here 
seems to be on occultism. Great Scott! I didn’t know 
you wasted your valuable time on such humbug.” 

I saw that Tracy was looking at me inquiringly. He 
raised his eyebrows with a mute question. 

“I can understand old Tracy there having his 
wheels buzz out of gear once in a while because he is 
getting old and feeble; but you!” Cogan threw his 
hands up in mock despair. Then I understood the 
meaning of Tracy’s look. 


SOULS IN HELL 


I laughed at the absurd face Cogan was making. 
“And why not me?” I countered. 

“Because I always took you to be more or less 
sane; that is . . ” he grinned boyishly, “ . . . for 
an artist.” 

“And now? —-” I waited for his answer. 

“Darned if I know what to think.” He scratched 
his head and winked at Tracy. 

“Well, it would take more time than I can spare 
now to answer your objections; for of course you have 
studied the subject,” I replied with an air of inno¬ 
cence. 

“Hm . . . well now . . .er . . . no, I cannot say that 
I have,” he admitted reluctantly. 

“That is why, probably, you are so ready to pass 
judgment on those who have,” I replied with a pre¬ 
tended sharpness in my tones. It was my turn to 
wink at Tracy. 

“Oh! say, old chap, I didn’t mean to flick you on 
a raw spot. Good Lord, old man, I wouldn’t hurt 
your feelings for . . .” 

“You haven’t hurt my feelings,” I interrupted, try¬ 
ing to look solemn, “but I dislike hearing a widely 
read man like you, an editor too, a man who should 
know that the greatest of our humanity were high 
priests of that same occultism; men like Lao Tse, 
Buddha, Plato, Iamblichus, our own Carlyle, Goethe, 
Emerson, and a bunch of others too numerous to men¬ 
tion. I dislike hearing you make free with an opin¬ 
ion on something you admit you know nothing about.” 

“That’s right,” Tracy chimed in gleefully, “throw 
the hooks into him. He needs someone to tell him a 
few home truths.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


23 

Cogan looked thoughtfully at Tracy a moment, 
then unceremoniously brushed some props off a chair, 
and sat down heavily. 

“Two to one,” he grunted. “I throw up my hands! I 
must confess that I am as ignorant of the subject as 
Paddy’s pig, but I thought it had to do with those 
fakers on Sixth Avenue; fortune tellers, Spiritualists, 
mediums, and all that bosh. Now, as I said before: 
although you are an artist I know you for a fairly 
sane citizen, so — —” He waved his hand apolo¬ 
getically. 

“I admit that you have some grounds for your 
mistake,” I replied, swinging around from my easel 
to face him; “but did it ever occur to you that the 
fakers were palming off on the credulous what was a 
poor, cheap, base imitation of something that may be 
true, real, and ennobling?” 

“To tell the truth, old fellow, I haven’t given it as 
much thought as perhaps I should have done, and if 
there is anything real and sincere in this . . . er . . 
(“Rubbish!” Tracy interjected grimly) “ ... in this 
occult stuff, as you say there is, perhaps . . He 
threw Tracy a significant glance. 

Tracy, sensing what Cogan evidently wanted to 
say, took up the theme. 

“I am only at the psychic stage, and totally un¬ 
trained,” he explained with a sigh of regret; “so I 
haven’t my clairvoyant faculty at my command. I 
have to wait for my things.” 

Which was Tracy’s way of saying that clairvoy¬ 
ance in his case, as in that of all untrained psychics, 
was casual and fortuitous. As I had had the benefit 
of a training under an advanced occultist, I knew 


M 


SOULS IN HELL 


what a drawback such undeveloped and untrained pow¬ 
ers were; and when in the course of our conversation 
he learned that I possessed the “open sight”—the 
faculty of trained clairvoyance,—he waxed enthusiast¬ 
ic, and suggested that I should use my powers to 
look “behind the veil” for the purpose of finding the 
missing data—the blank spots—in the drama in which 
Cogan, his wife, and his brother-in-law, Jack Waller, 
had played such prominent parts. 

I looked at Cogan to see what he thought of the 
suggestion. He glanced quizzingly at Tracy, then at 
me. I suppose our using words belonging to the tech¬ 
nique of clairvoyance which were new and strange to 
him, (probably sounding like so much gibberish), 
made him doubt our sincerity; for, after chewing on 
the end of his cigar awhile, he blurted out: 

“Say! What kind of a bunco game are you two 
jokers trying to put over on me? I am Irish, and I 
am well aware that the green shows now and then, 
but”— (“Looks very red to me, sometimes,” Tracy 
edged in)—“but,” repeated Cogan, continuing, “I’m 
perhaps not quite as green as you spalpeens think I 
am.” 

Tracy turned to me with a smile of amusement. 
“Thrying to taake advanthage of a poorr, unprotected 
orphin. Is thaat your gaarne? Shame on your head! 
How can ye do such a thing?” he quavered in a sta¬ 
gey voice. 

“Huh! You won’t put anything across on this 
child,” retorted the “orphan;” “not if I see you first.” 

“We are not trying to put anything over on you,” 
I said in a serious tone. “Furthermore, you are not 
asked to accept any of my statements in a spirit of 


SOULS IN HELL 


35 


blind faith. Indeed, I prefer you sceptical rather than 
credulous; for believeing too much and too readily is 
quite as foolish as believing too little. Personally, I 
think it is worse; for a healthy scepticism and a spir¬ 
it of inquiry make a man use the little gray matter 
he possesses by thinking for himself, instead of taking 
the ipse dixit of others who may know no more than he 
does.” 

Cogan pulled vigorously at his cigar, pondering. He 
was on unfamiliar ground with an unfamiliar topic; 
and while it was apparent that he welcomed the idea 
of clearing up the mystery of the murder, he wanted 
to make sure that we were not ‘stringing’ him—as he 
put it. He didn’t like the thought that he might be 
ridiculed later on for being an ‘easy mark’; that was 
something his Irish sensitiveness rebelled against. 

“Well now, honest to goodness,” he began in a seri¬ 
ous tone, looking suspiciously at me from under his 
shaggy eyebrows, “do you mean to say that you and 
old Tracy here can see things that . . . er . . . that I 
and other folks cannot see—astral bodies, spooks, and 
such like?” 

“As I explained: I am untrained—” Tracy began, 
but Cogan would not be headed off. 

“Assuming for the sake of argument that there is 
another world, better or worse than this—heaven or 
hell, call it what you like,—assuming there is a place 
where people go to when they die; do you mean to 
say that you can see, feel, hear, or otherwise get in 
touch with those people? The ones we call ‘dead’?” 

“So far as I am concerned, because I cannot answer 
for Tracy, that is just exactly what I mean to say,” 
I replied definitely. 


SOULS IN HELL 


26 


“You claim to be able to see and talk to those dead 
persons?” he persisted. 

“Those whom you call ‘dead’ are more alive than 
we are! Having been released from their heavy physi¬ 
cal bodies, they are freer and very much more 
alive than we are. The old Greek philosophers said 
we who lived on this earth in physical bodies were real¬ 
ly the dead ones (hoi neckroi ); and I claim, in all 
seriousness, to be able to see and converse with those 
whom you call ‘dead.’ ” 

“Rubbish! Rubbish!” he exploded. 

I looked over at Tracy, but he was lolling back in 
his chair; his eyes closed; a smile on his face. Si¬ 
lently I drew Oogan’s attention to the smile, and said: 

“If a million Cogans yelled ‘rubbish’ so loudly that 
it could be heard at the other side of the globe, old 
Tracy would still have that seraphic smile on his face. 
Do you know why, Cogan?” 

He grinned boyishly when I put the question to 
him. 

“Probably the old fraud is thinking out another 
story to plant on me, and so pay his back rent.” His 
shoulders shook with laughter. 

“Come now,” I begged, “be serious and answer my 
question. Do you know why?” 

“The good Lord may know, but I don’t. What’s the 
answer?” 

“Tracy would still smile, partly at your ignor¬ 
ance, but more particularly because he knows ” I re¬ 
torted. “ ‘Fools deride,’ ” I quoted, “ ‘but philoso¬ 
phers investigate.’ ” 

He was silent for a few moments, then pulled out 

his watch to see how much time he could spare. 


SOULS IN HELL 


27 

“Oh well, I may as well make a day of it,” he said 
finally, making himself comfortable in his chair. “Go 
ahead and enlighten my ignorance. I’m open to con¬ 
viction. Shoot!” 




“Big Tom” Cogan—as his intimates called him, like 
most busy men of the world, had time only for the 
things within his ken; things bounded by the horizon 
of his everyday, work-a-day life; things that affected 
him immediately. His waking moments were full of 
intense activity (a victim of the American vice of try¬ 
ing to crowd tomorrow’s work into today), and when 
he had a breathing spell, he was so tired that he felt 
—as he said—like sleeping for a week. Being an edi¬ 
tor, he had to keep abreast of the times; consequently, 
he read almost everything he could lay his hands on. 
Every now and then he would come across an article, 
essay, or critique dealing with spiritualistic phenom¬ 
ena, such as alleged messages from the dead, and other 
happenings purporting to be of a super-normal ori¬ 
gin. If written by an author unknown to him, he would 
pass it by unread with a good-natured contempt for 
the ones who wasted their time reading such twaddle. 
If it was by Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, 
Camille Flammarion, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, or 
other well-known man, he would read it as a matter 
of duty; but he rarely got anything of value or last¬ 
ing benefit from the perusal, because his critical fac¬ 
ulty, would, sooner or later, be busy picking out faults 


SOULS IN HELL 


38 

in the form, typography, or grammar, calling to his 
aid a blue pencil with which to correct the punctua- 
tion and other errors. 

It was a standing joke in his home! His wife always 
knew when he had read any book or magazine article 
by finding the pages blue-pencilled. Unfortunately 
for him, the habit had become so much a part of his 
nature, he missed the real essentials through giving 
undue importance to the things that did not matter 
much. 

That is true, worse luck, of most of us! In that re¬ 
spect nearly all of us are “Cogans”—full of the spirit 
of criticism. We miss the beauty of the statue be¬ 
cause we see only the fly-marks; we forget the gran¬ 
deur of the enterprise in our zeal to show up the 
weaknesses; the nobility of a soul in a hand-me-down 
suit goes unrecognized by the tailor; the message is 
pigeonholed because it is not written in the conven¬ 
tional style; a truly spiritual man may be branded 
“atheist” because he does not attend a church; a great 
love laid on the altar of sacrifice is frowned on and 
deemed sinful because the lovers neglected to cross the 
palm of a clergyman with a five dollar bill. 

The majority of humans usually see and give great 
importance only to the non-essentials of life, thereby 
missing many of the things that really count. Plato’s 
‘Allegory of the Cave’ applies to us today as much as 
it did to the people of his day. We are so engrossed 
and enamoured with the shadows thrown on the screen 
of time, shadows that are transitory and unstable, 
that we fail to see or recognize the verities of life. 
The politician sees only the place; not the opportunity 
to serve. The money-grabber thinks the possession of 


SOULS IN HELL 


29 


wealth the end; not the means to reach the desired 
goal of happiness—by using his money for lightening 
the burdens on weak shoulders. And . . . but let us 
get to the story. 

Cogan was a specimen of a type only too common. 
What he could not understand, or did not have first- 
hand knowledge of, he pooh-poohed and waved aside 
as an aberration of an incompetent mind, or smiled in¬ 
dulgently at it as one of the harmless fads of the 
hour. 

He confessed that that had been his attitude up to 
the time when the murder of Benton almost tore his 
home-circle asunder, and threatened to throw a last¬ 
ing dark shadow over the lives of those he loved most 
dearly; but later on, when the case took such a sud¬ 
den and strange turn, he was brought a trifle closer 
to the realities—the verities of life, and was, conse¬ 
quently, more disposed to accept the possibility of 
there being “something in it;”—the super-normal 
side of the matter. 

At the end of our conversation, which took up most 
of the remainder of the afternoon, he completely 
changed his attitude, and welcomed Tracy’s sugges¬ 
tion that I use my clairvoyant faculty to clear up the 
mystery. 

“Say, old man,” he remarked when he was going, 
“let me know how much I am to cough up for all this 
trouble I am giving you.” 

I laughed, and asked him. “Do you mean how 
much money?” 

He nodded. “Sure, Mike; for of course I cannot 
©xp®ct you to do it for nothing! As my boss knows to 


30 


SOULS IN HELL 


his sorrow when your bills come in, your time is worth 
money; so if you’ll say . . .” 

“That is where you are mistaken. The real spiritual 
clairvoyant faculty is rarely or never used except in 
a good cause, and for a good purpose; consequently, 
the user of that faculty does not sell jhis powers for 
money or anything else. Indeed, he retains his pow¬ 
ers on the condition that they are used unselfishly 
and for the benefit of humanity; the moment they are 
used for personal selfish gain, that moment marks the 
beginning of the speedy loss of those powers and fac¬ 
ulty. You can always use that fact as a test when 
having anything to do with a real clairvoyant, or . . . 
the imitation.” 

“But what about the ‘laborer being worthy of his 
hire’?” 

“The clairvoyant reaps his reward in the form of 
more power and extended vision with which to give 
more help to his fellows who need helping,” I an¬ 
swered. 

Cogan looked nonplussed for a moment. “Huh, kind 
of stumps me, that does! I am so used to having people 
trying to gouge me, that your proposition sort of 
catches me off my base.” 

“Something new in your experience, eh?” I said to 
give him a chance to recover his normal equanimity. 
I knew that “Big Tom” with his big generous heart 
would rather be on the giver’s end than on the receiv¬ 
er’s. He nodded absently to my question; then found 
his voice. 

“You shall have my very sincere thanks, anyhow,” 
shaking my hand vigorously, “for the whole business 
is certainly queer, to say the least; and I must admit 


SOULS IN HELL 


31 


that the hypothesis of ‘coincidence’ doesn’t seem to 
cover the case.” 


Using certain methods, well known to every trained 
occultist, I carefully went over the whole matter, and 
the result of my investigations behind the veil was the 
completion of the story in all its details. 

When I had gathered all the data I suggested that 
Tracy ought to write the full story; for, being a lit¬ 
erary man, a professional writer with all the tricks of 
the craft at his command, I felt that he was the 
proper man to do it; but he was very decided in his 
refusal. The very considerations I advanced to in¬ 
duce him to write the story were, in his opinion, the 
strongest arguments against the proposition. 

“I honestly think”—Tracy said—“that such a nar¬ 
rative will be of value to those who desire to know of 
conditions after death (and who isn’t interested in 
such a vital topic?), and any lack of literary ability 
will, if anything, be in your favor. If I wrote it, the 
style of the professional writer would be so obvious, it 
would be taken for fiction. That is just the fault 
with most books written on the subject; they are so 
well written they do not sound genuine, but merely 
works of imagination.” 

“Yes, I agree with you on that point,” I inter¬ 
rupted. 

“Besides, you know these things and can correlate 
them with physical plane phenomena, whereas I . . 


SOULS IN HELL 


32 

He shrugged his shoulders with an air of regret. 

“But, mj dear fellow,” I responded, thinking with 
a sinking heart of my other work—work that meant 
my bread and butter, “I don’t know a blessed thing 
about making books; I’d hardly know how or where 
to start. Then . . . the question of ‘style’! why . . 

“Style!” he snorted contemptuously. “The less you 
know of style in this connection, the better your story 
will be.” 

“Now if it called for painting a picture,” I hedged, 
“why—I would feel more at home; but . . .” 

“All right,” Tracy broke in, “think of the various 
incidents as pictures, and describe them ... in writ¬ 
ing.” 

That was the end of our discussion. Tracy threw 
the whole business on my shoulders, and considered 
the matter settled! 

Lacking the writer’s training, I have tried to tell 
the story in a straight-forward fashion, hoping that 
my readers will find it—and the moral it teaches— 
interesting enough to disregard any deficiencies of lit¬ 
erary quality. 

To make the whole thing clear, it is necessary to go 
back for a period of about four or five weeks prev¬ 
ious to the trial, and to take the incidents as nearly 
as possible in chronological order. The only addi¬ 
tions I have attempted are the descriptions of the ac¬ 
tors in the tragedy, so that the reader may more 
clearly see the reasons for the causes of the effects; 
the working out of what Emerson calls “The Law of 
Compensationwhat the occultist calls “The Law of 
Karma.” 


THE STORY. 


Tom Cogan or, to give him the name bj which he 
is best known in the magazine world, Rig Tom Cogan, 
—“big” because he is big not only in a physical but 
more especially in a spiritual sense—big-souled and 
big-hearted,—Big Tom Cogan was seated at his desk, 
doing his daily stint as Editor of the Manhattan 
Short Story Magazine; attending to the thousand 
and one things that crowd an editor’s life, making 
him gray-haired and nervous before his time; in be¬ 
tween times reading manuscripts of short stories; in¬ 
terrupted by persons with axes to grind, and who 
should have never got past the office boy; his eye 
caught sight of the calendar, and he remembered that 
this was the day that Hamilton, the artist, had faith¬ 
fully promised to deliver the drawings for the “fea¬ 
ture” story —The Workers —of the forthcoming 
issue. 

Turning to his “sub,” Cogan asked: “Say, Ted, 
has Hamilton brought in his drawings for The Work¬ 
ers yet?” 

Ted Curran, the sub-editor and general utility 
man, attended to the numerous details connected 
with the “make-up” of the magazine: the ordering of 
the plates for the illustrations; keeping tab on the 
contributions—literary and artistic—that were ac- 
33 


34 


SOULS IN HELL 


cepted by his chief; doing everything in short that 
could lessen the load on Big Tom’s overloaded shoul¬ 
ders. 

Adjusting the large tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles 
which enlarged his bright blue eyes, and revealed the 
whimsical humor that always seemed to lurk in them, he 
swung round on his chair to refer to a large card on 
the wall, on which he kept track of the contributors 
to each monthly issue—his “make-up” guide; or, as 
he preferred to call it, his “race-track dope.” 

“Not yet, he hasn’t,” he replied cheerfully. “ ‘Ham’ 
is running true to form. A very consistent performer. 
Can always depend on him being two or three days 
late. I’m ’fraid Ham’ll never bring home the bacon.” 
He sniggerd at his own pun. 

Cogan snorted impatiently, grabbed the ’phone, and 
called the artist’s number. 

“Burn his hide,” he muttered, waiting for the con¬ 
nection. “I’ll bet my old shoes he is lolling on that 
lounge of his, strumming ragtime jazz on his guitar.” 
Getting a response from the artist at the other end 
of the wire, he said in a weary tone: “Say, Tinto¬ 
retto, how are those drawings coming on? You prom¬ 
ised them for today. How about it?” 

The artist’s answer evoked a grim smile from Cogan 
as he announced into the phone his intention of call¬ 
ing on the artist that evening, to see for himself just 
how near the drawings were to completion. He was 
about to hang up the receiver when a question from 
the artist made him lean back, his shoulders shaking 
with unconcealed mirth. In a voice broken with laugh¬ 
ter, he replied: “Why do I call you ‘Tintoretto’? Be¬ 
cause Tintoretto always made it a point to keep his 


SOULS IN HELL 


35 


promises . . . ahead of time!” He hungr ud the re¬ 
ceiver, muttering with a grin, “That’ll hold you for a 
while—you lazy scamp.” 

Hearing Ted sniggering behind him, he turned to 
remark: 

“Ted, my boy, literary men are bad enough, but 
these illustrators are the limit!” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” laughed Ted. “I guess it’s 
six of one and half a dozen of t’other. There isn’t 
very much to choose between them, so far as I can 
see.” 

“He says he is working like a slave on the draw¬ 
ings,” said Cogan, ironically. “Like a slave! The lazy 
rip!” 

Ted smiled; it was an old, old story to him as also 
to his chief. “He ought to paint a portrait of him¬ 
self doing the slave stunt; make a fine frontispiece 
for The Workers story,” he suggested, grinning. 
“You might pass the idea on to him; see what he 
thinks of the notion. ‘Slaving’ listens good,” he con¬ 
tinued ; “but the only time he does any slaving is 
when he plays chess with Kelly, his next door neigh¬ 
bor. Kelly makes him slave all right, all right.” 

His chief looked up from a manuscript, surprised. 
“Chess? I didn’t know he played chess. Didn’t know 
he could keep his mind on one thing long enough.” 

“Play chess? Huh!” Ted grunted. “Why, with 
those two fellows it’s a case of ‘if chess interferes with 
your business, give up your business.’ It amounts to 
an obsession with them. Every time I land at his 
studio they are hard at it, trying the Rice gambit, 
the Cheese gambit, or some other opening with an 
outlandish name. Chess? Well, I should smile!” 


36 


SOULS IN HELL 


Cogan gave a grunt of annoyance. “Confound him 
and his chess! I wanted to get those drawings to the 
engravers this afternoon, so as to leave me free to¬ 
morrow morning.” 

“By Jove; that’s so!” exclaimed Ted. “I’d forgotten 
that your brother-in-law’s ship is due tomorrow. I 
suppose Mrs. Cogan is tickled to death having her 
brother return a hero.” 

“You can bet she is,” smiled Cogan; “and so am I. 
And say, Ted, you ought to see that kid of mine! 
The little scamp hasn’t had a full night’s sleep since 
his mother told him that his Uncle Jack is coming 
home.” He beamed happily, as though—in his mind’s 
eye—he saw the happy meeting of the boy and his 
uncle. 

“Yes, sir,” he continued, his eyes twinkling, “it 
feels good to have a blooming ’ero in one’s family. I 
am feeling the effect already. So many people are 
so much more cordial than usual; makes me feel quite 
chesty!” 

“Shining by reflected light, as it were,” suggested 
Ted. 

The editor nodded, and grinned happily. 


J* 


If Cogan and Ted, his sub, could have seen Ham¬ 
ilton the artist “slaving” on his drawings, they would 
have lost their bets. True, he was lolling on his 
lounge as Cogan surmised; but he wasn’t playing the 
guitar, nor was he playing chess. He had something 


SOULS IN HELL 


87 

new to hold his attention, and to give him an axcuse 
for “bumming”—as he jocularly termed his wasting 
of valuable daylight. 

His model, dressed in the shabby costume of one of 
the characters in his drawings, was sitting cross- 
legged on a cushion at the side of a tabouret on 
which was a sheet of stiff drawing paper. On the 
paper was a triangular-shaped piece of thin wood, 
raised from the paper at two of its corners by pegs; 
the third corner held, in lieu of peg, a lead pencil. It 
was a “planchette,” an article well known in circles 
given to spiritualistic phenomena. The model rested 
the fingers of her hand lightly on the surface of the 
planchette, with the result that the board moved in a 
more or less erratic fashion over the paper; the pencil 
writing what was, to the ordinary person, a meaning¬ 
less scrawl, but which, to the initiated, was a message 
written by the agency of invisible spiritual entities. 

This was a new “stunt” to Hamilton; and, instead 
of working at his drawings, he was engrossed in 
watching the planchette write. 

“Aw, say!” he burst out, after watching the perform¬ 
ance for some minutes, “you can’t fool me, kid! You 
are making it write yourself,” he accused, with a fine 
disregard for grammar. 

“I am not, Mr. Hamilton,” the model replied indig¬ 
nantly. “Just you try it, then you’ll see for yourself.” 

He was about to do so when the telephone call from 
Cogan reminded him of his promise to have the draw¬ 
ings completed. 

“Come on, kid; we’ve got to get to work. That was 
the main gazabo yelling for these drawings; and he’ll 
be up tonight to see them. Come on, let’s get busy.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


88 

Going to his easel, and after lighting a fresh cig¬ 
arette, he started sharpening his charcoal. The model 
dragged herself very reluctantly from the communion 
with her alleged spirit friends, and, having mounted 
the model’s ‘‘throne,” took the required pose. 




A couple of hours later, Cogan’s labors were inter¬ 
rupted by his wife who, having put in the afternoon 
shopping in the city, had come to accompany her hus¬ 
band to their home in the suburbs. 

“Hello! Good afternoon, everybody,” was her 
greeting. “Overworking yourselves, as usual?” 

Ted, the sub-editor, chuckled. “Good afternoon, 
Mrs. Cogan,” he answered her smiling nod. “Over¬ 
working is correct, all right.” 

She went to her husband who, sitting back in his 
swivel chair, was reading “copy” and uttering male¬ 
dictions in between puffs of his half-smoked cigar. Slid¬ 
ing her arm around his shoulder and kissing him fond¬ 
ly, she noticed his annoyed expression. Leaning so that 
he could see her face, and imitating his frowning ex¬ 
pression, she made a grimace of amusement. 

“Now what is troubling my big boy?” she quizzed. 
“Author, artist, or advertiser? I know it must be one 
of the three; probably a combination of them all. Eh?” 

“Oh, hang it! These fellows will drive me into an 
early grave; that is sure,” was his disgusted response. 

Mrs. Cogan laughed merrily. “Never mind, boysie. 
Cheerup; tomorrow’s another day.” She rubbed the 


SOULS IN HELL 


39 


top of his head playfully. ‘‘Come along, time’s up! 
Get your hat, Tom, and we will make the 5.50 train 
and forget all our worries.” She leaned down to speak 
into his ear; then in a stage whisper, “We shall have 
your favorite dessert—custard!” 

He heaved a sigh. “Sorry, Kitty, but I can’t do it. 
I have to run up to Hamilton’s studio this evening to 
hurry along some drawings he’s making for us.” 

She gave a gesture of disappointment. “Pst! Just 
my luck! And after all the trouble I took to make it. ?> 

Cogan puffed vigorously on his half-chewed cigar and 
frowned. “As if I haven’t enough to do as it is,” he 
growled. “Confound Hamilton; the lazy scamp!” 

His wife patted his shoulder soothingly, and tried to 
hide her disappointment. 

He glanced up at her face, and saw that she was 
biting her lip. His own face brightened as a thought 
occurred to him. 

“Why not stay and have dinner in town with me? 
We need not stay long at Ham’s; then we can go 
home together.” He reached up and pressed her hand, 
“The custard can wait until we get home. You know 
I can do full justice to it however late it is. What do 
you say?” 

She gave his hand an answering squeeze, and smiled 
happily. 

Her eyes, suspiciously moist, brightened at the sug¬ 
gestion with its promise of being with her husband; for, 
as she often said: half the time she didn’t know she 
had a husband, what with him working overtime on 
the magazine, or else shut up in his study at home, 
writing plays. Every now and then she would expostu- 


40 


SOULS IN HELL 


late with him, complaining that she might as well be 
living in a boarding house, or be a grass widow, and 
would beg to see a little more of him, to give her a 
little more of his company; which would lead to a tiff, 
the only tiffs they had, and it would generally end up 
with his retorting that when they were lying side by 
side in their wooden suits, they would have nothing to 
do but gaze at the stars and make love to each other; 
while now—he had all he could do to provide for her 
and their boy, Harold. 

“You know, Kitty, it is quite possible that a brick 
or a shingle may fall off one of these jerry-built joint* 
and land on my defenceless “beanor I may get run 
over by a careless freight train, or put in a hospital 
by a giddy chauffeur trying to side-swipe me in pure 
joy of showing off his skill; or I may get ptomaine 
poisoning from eating beef fresh from a six months* 
sojourn in the cold storage warehouse, and ... I don’t 
exactly like the idea of you and the kiddie having to 
depend on charity.” 

His semi-humorous sallies, accompanied by a hug, 
would always put a stop to her complaints; and the ar¬ 
gument would always end with her throwing her arms 
around his neck, and calling herself selfish. She often 
wondered what on earth she should do if she ever lost 
her big husband, and the reference to their child—the 
“kid”—invariably brought the discussion to an abrupt 
end; for she worshipped the very ground he trod on. 
Together, they were the centre of her universe; also 
the circumference thereof. 

Being of a strong, passionate nature, love to her 
meant 'possession. She could not understand the love 


SOULS IN HELL 


41 


that spelled renunciation. Such a love, to her, seemed 
weakness. She was of the type that would fight like 
a tigress for the possession of her loved one. Intensely 
loyal to those who had won her heart, she would go 
through fire and water for them. And sometimes, in 
the excess of her love emotion, her arms tightly wound 
around her husband, pressing him to her heaving bosom, 
she would whisper through her clinched teeth: “You 
dear, big brute! I wish I could squeeze you small 
enough to put you in the innermost recess of my heart, 
so that I might have you with me all the time; for all 
eternity, never more to be parted-” 

So it was with a glad heart and beaming face that 
she welcomed her husband’s suggestion of dining to¬ 
gether. 

“All right, boysie ; that will be fine,” she whispered, 
pressing a passionate kiss on his forehead. “You better 
’phone home to tell Maggie, so that she and Harold 
can have their dinner, and not wait for us.” 

Cogan nodded assent, glad that the little cloud was 
dissipated, and called the ’phone number of his house. 

“I suppose we’ll have to wait half an hour for the 
connection; the service is awful nowadays,” he remarked 
with a grunt. “Seems as if all the girls are doing 
war work of some sort or other, so they are short- 
handed at . . . .” He heard the servant’s voice coming 
over the wire . . . “Oh! hello; is that you, Maggie? 
This is Mr. Cogan. Your mistress will have dinner 
with me in town this evening, so you and Harold go 
ahead and have dinner. No, we shall not be late . . . 
What’s that?” He laughed. “All right, I’ll hold the 
wire.” He turned to his wife. “Maggie says Harold 


4 2 


SOULS IN HELL 


is there . . . wants to speak to us; the little scalla- 
wag.” He turned back to the ’phone when he heard 
his boy’s lisp. “Hello, sonny ... I don’t know 
about that . . . well, wait a moment and you can ask 
your mumsie.” He smiled as he gave the receiver 
to his wife. “The kiddie wants to stay up until we 
get home. Tell him ‘yes.’ We’ll cut our visit at 
Hamilton’s as short as possible.” 

Mrs. Cogan rested her arm on the desk, and cooed 
into the phone: “Hello, Mumsie’s kiddlums .... Yes, I 

can hear you, darling.Oh, no, dearie. Uncle Jack 

hasn’t come yet .... no, tomorrow morning, sweet¬ 
heart ... No, we shall not be late . . . yes, you may 
stay up until we come home, but be a very, very good 

boy, and do as Maggie tells you, won’t you?. 

Goodbye, here is a kiss for you over the phone .... 
Goodbye, Mumsie’s kiddlums.” 

Cogan was close enough to the receiver to hear the 
child’s prattle. His eyes were moist as he looked into 
the face of his wife. She caught his glance, and--- 
understood. She pressed his hand lovingly. Their 
cup of happiness was full and overflowing. 



II 


The smoking room of the ocean liner, La Republique , 
was not so crowded as it had been on other evenings of 
the voyage. The peculiar unrest of American pas¬ 
sengers when nearing their destination was manifest 
on this the evening before the liner was due to arrive at 
New York. Some of the male passengers were outside 
on the decks enjoying the magnificent moonlit night; 
some, of course, were in certain shady nooks, exchanging 
vows and other small talk with some of the opposite 
sex; others were lounging in the corridors, listening 
to the music coming from the main saloon. 

At the card-tables were the usual card fiends who 
seemed to regard life merely as an opportunity to play 
poker or pinochle; they, like the poor and the tax- 
gatherer, are always in evidence. At this particular 
time their enjoyment was marred by the loud talk and 
raucous laugh of a middle-aged, half-tipsy man sitting 
at one of the other tables, and who insisted on making 
himself the centre of attraction by amusing his im¬ 
mediate neighbors—who had nothing better to do—- 
with his coarse witticisms, and opinions on almost every 
topic under the sun. 

The man was Karl Benton; actor, man of the world, 
and, formerly, a Broadway matinee idol. Of mixed par- 

43 


44 


SOULS IN HELL 


entage, he claimed tha United States as his home; ta 
which he was now returning after an extended tour of 
five years around the world. 

Although his fat, blotched face with its baggy, leer¬ 
ing eyes bore witness to the dissipated life he had led, 
one could not fail to see that he must have been strik¬ 
ingly handsome in the days when he made his first hit, 
and took the metropolitan theatre-going public by 
storm. His brilliant, dark eyes still held the imperious 
seductive look that had quickened the heart-beats of his 
feminine worshippers, and had made him the recipient 
of gushing love-letters written by women of all sorts 
and conditions between the two coasts. His photo¬ 
graph as Romeo graced many an elegant boudoir, 
while his admirers who could not afford the luxury of 
a photograph, offered up the incense of their adoration 
to half-tone pictures cut out of the magazines and 
Sunday newspapers. 

During the voyage, he had spent most of his time 
gracefully allowing himself to be lionized by the women 
on board; holding them enthralled—for he was a fas¬ 
cinating raconteur —with the accounts of his experi¬ 
ences with royalty, and other great ones of the world. 
His conversation was enhanced by the employment cf 
all the oratorical tricks of the actor, and the suavity 
of the travelled cosmopolite who had been the lion 
of London and Paris drawing-rooms; the hero of many 
love affairs with ladies of high position in both hemi¬ 
spheres. 

This evening, however, the women folk felt senti¬ 
mental along other lines. 

Someone had started the ball rolling by playing 


SOULS IN HELL 


45 


Way down upon the Suwanee River from a book of 
Popular Home Melodies, and it had developed into 
what Benton sneeringly snubbed a “damned, snivel¬ 
ling, revival meeting!” Finding that his star had set 
for that evening—so far as the women were concerned, 
Benton had tried to find some male companion who 
would listen to the recital of his exploits; but without 
success. The men had no desire to be bored with his 
egotism; besides, they had heard so much of and from 
him, they had no wish to hear more. He turned for 
solace to the ship’s bar, seeking consolation for his 
offended amour propre in numerous highballs, and the 
company of the bartender; but even the dispenser of 
drinks who, at other times, had—as a matter of busi¬ 
ness courtesy—listened to his “song and dance” (as he 
contemptuously termed the celebrated actor’s account 
of himself and his doings), was so fed up that he ex¬ 
cused his inattention by saying he was too busy making 
up his accounts. Finally, he drifted into the smoking- 
room, hoping to find some who, like himself, found time 
hanging heavily on their hands. He had imbibed more 
alcohol than usual—which was saying a great deal, and 
at this particular time of his advent in the smoking- 
room had reached the stage where his sense of discre¬ 
tion was not so keen as it should have been. 

His present audience was not a large one, but what 
it lacked in numbers, it made up in evident enjoyment 
of the risque stories that flowed in a steady stream 
from his, apparently, inexhaustible store; which devel¬ 
oped in coarseness as he proceeded. The card players 
were not at all pleased to have his raucous laugh break 
in on their games, and more than once they muttered 


46 


SOULS IN HELL 


curses on him and his dirty tales. They were not the 
only ones to feel displeased at his intrusion. 

Jack Waller had welcomed the comparative quiet of 
the smoking-room as an opportunity to smoke a cigar 
in peace, without being pestered to talk about his ex¬ 
periences in the war. His left arm—which had been 
broken during one of his reconnoitering trips by the 
bullet of a Boche airman, and now in splints—had been 
giving him some sharp twinges, and now he was glad 
to be able to rest it on the arm of his chair while he 
smoked in comfort, and listened to the faint sounds of 
the “Home Melodies,” which fitted in perfectly with his 
present mood. 

When Benton started telling his stories, Jack had 
tried to ignore his presence, hoping that either the actor 
or the listeners would get tired and go elsewhere; but 
when story followed story, each worse than the preced¬ 
ing one and delivered in a loud, carrying voice that 
could be heard all over the room, Jack began to get 
restless. As the actor’s accounts of his dealings with 
the fair sex began to be more detailed, and took on a 
more lurid and salacious coloring, Jack’s ears began to 
tingle, and his jaws came together with an ominous set. 
The stories were quite bad enough, but when the actor 
recounted some of his experiences with women who were 
wives of men at the front, and mothers of families, 
Jack felt that his limit of endurance was reached. He 
glanced once or twice toward the group at Benton’s 
table, wondering w r hat kind of cattle they were, to sit 
and not only listen to, but enjoy the abominable talk 
that flowed from Benton’s lips. One of the men, seem¬ 
ingly? had arrived at his limit of indecency, for he took 


SOULS IN HELL 


47 


advantage of a lull to remark that he, for one, would 
be glad to get on land again. 

“So shall I,” agreed another of the group. “I sure 
will be glad to see my little woman again. I haven’t 
seen her for over six months, and I guess she’ll be glad 
to welcome her hubby.” 

Benton looked at the speaker with a bleary look of 
contempt; then laughed in a metallic, parrot-like cackle. 

“That’s a long time to be away from a dear, loving 
wife. Pretty risky, isn’t it? I wouldn’t trust my wife 
that length of time!” 

The man to whom Benton spoke waved his hand 
deprecatingly. 

“My wife isn’t that kind of woman,” he said, pulling 
down his vest with a self-satisfied air. “I could trust 
her anywhere and at any time.” 

“So?” Benton sneered “Hmff! Your wife is one 
in ten thousand! Where did you find her? In an 
asylum for the deaf, dumb, and blind? Or perhaps she’s 
a cripple!” 

A frown came over the man’s face. He didn’t quite 
like the trend of the conversation; it was becoming a 
trifle too personal for even his dull wit. Seeing an 
opportunity to turn the laugh on to Benton, he grunt¬ 
ed pointedly, “Perhaps your married life has been un¬ 
fortunate. What did she do; run away with another 
feller?” 

The actor looked at him in well-feigned amazement. 

“Do you mean me?” he flashed, putting his much- 
diamonded fingers gracefully on his breast. “Ho, ho, 
ho! That’s a great joke! The best I’ve heard in a 
long while,” he laughed uproariously. “Gad! I was 


48 


SOULS IN HELL 


never fool enough to marry any woman. Why should 
I when I can borrow other men’s wives?” 

His listeners glanced at each other in disapproval of 
such talk. 

“Oh! say, say!” protested one; “that’s going too 
far! You must remember some of us are married.” 

“More fools they,” droned Benton, with a curl of 
his thin lips. 

Jack could stand it no longer. Striding to where 
Benton sat, his first impulse was to punch his jaw; but 
when he saw that the actor was more than half drunk, 
he changed his mind and looked at him contemptuously. 

Benton, of course, had heard all about Jack’s hero¬ 
ism from the women on board; they, as Jack had kept 
himself aloof, had had to content themselves with wor¬ 
shipping him from a distance, and discussing his ex¬ 
ploits with the other passengers, Benton included. The 
actor, too, was jealous of anyone who, consciously or 
unconsciously, encroached on the spotlight of popular¬ 
ity which he considered belonged to him alone. He 
looked up at Jack’s grim, set face with the quick real¬ 
ization that he was no match in his present drunken 
condition for this young giant; but the sight of the 
wounded arm resting in its bandage assured him that 
there was nothing to fear on that score. He surmised 
that any encounter with Jack would be one merely of 
wits,—a talk-fest, as he inwardly said to himself,—so, 
with an air of composure, he looked up at Jack when 
the latter remarked witheringly: 

“Evidently, you have never met any women worth 
knowing—judging from your talk. You don’t seem to 
have a very high, or flattering opinion of them.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


49 


The actor, amused, drew himself up, and struck a 
tragic pose; as though he were declaiming a favorite 
line. 

“My dear young fellow. I love all women, all wom¬ 
en worth knowing; especially the married ones.” Then 
with a delicate gesture of his hand to give point to his 
remark: “They know how to keep their mouths shut, 
and keep their own counsel.” He waved his jewelled 
hand with an air of finality. 

Jack’s lips came together in a straight line, and his 
fist shut tightly; but sensing the fact that the bloated 
lump of conceit was a coward at heart, he repressed 
the impulse to strike him. 

A couple of the men at the table shuffled out of 
their seats, as though ashamed to be found in such 
company. 

“I feel sorry for you,” said Jack, staring coldly 
into the actor’s eyes. “A man of your age ought to 
have a little more decency. If you had been where I 
have just come from. . . .” 

Benton, not being disposed to play second fiddle by 
being put on the defensive, cut in with: “Pardon me, 
I haven’t the—uh —honour or—uh—pleasure of your 
acquaintance, so—” adjusting his monocle carefully, 
he looked up at Jack as if he were a specimen of some 
new and curious species, . . . “where have you just come 
from, my young Sir Galahad?” 

“I have come from a place where I have seen better 
men than you will ever be,” he began in a cold, even 
tone. “Men torn by shrapnel and bullets, parts of their 
splendid bodies blown away, their lungs corroding from 
the effects of poison-gas, going through a hell of pain 


50 


SOULS IN HELL 


and agony; in an atmosphere fetid with the smell of 
stale blood, and the odor of surgical dressings. Those 
men were attended to and nursed by well bred, nurtured 
women who, although at the limit of their endurance 
and at the point of collapse through want of proper 
rest and food, kept on, like the ministering angels 
they are, trying to lessen the agony of the wounded/’ 

The card-players stopped their games, as if by com¬ 
mon consent, to listen to Jack describing the scene he 
seemed to visualize before him. 

“How very interesting!” Benton drawled with a cyn¬ 
ical smile. “God bless the dear little girls.” 

Jack did not heed the interruption. His eyes took 
on a faraway look, as though he again saw the in¬ 
cidents happening. 

“One scene I shall never forget! It had been pour¬ 
ing a deluge of rain, sleet and hail for three days, with 
an icy wind cutting one’s flesh to the bone. Thousands 
of shells bursting all around us; hell let loose! By 
sheer weight of numbers the enemy was forcing us 
back—a retreat. We were marching, stumbling, dog- 
tired and spent—literally asleep on our feet—over a 
road that was shell-holes and morasses of mud. We 
brought the wounded in with us as best we could. A 
procession of tired soldiers acting as bearers are bring¬ 
ing in men—the wounded and dying. Awaiting them 
in the cold downpour, their faces raw from the effects 
of the bitter wind, their feet sunk in the mire, their 
clothes soaked and caked with mud, are two Sisters of 
Mercy.” 

A hush full of solemnity fell upon the men as they 
listened. The card-players laid their cards on the 


SOULS IN HELL 


51 


table. They appreciated the fact that they were get¬ 
ting a report of some of the strenuous doings in the 
war, and by an eye-witness and participator in the 
events. 

“Two of the bearers halt near the side of the ditch. 
A Sister, guessing what the action means, runs to the 
dying man, and kneels in the mud at the .side of the 
litter. The other calls to a Belgian priest attending 
another brave fellow, who is in the agony of death, to 
come quickly. The priest hastens to hear the dying 
man’s confession; the Sisters kneel in prayer, comfort¬ 
ing the poor soldier’s last moments as his life ebbs 
away in gasps.” 

One of the card-players, evidently of the Roman 
Catholic faith, bowed his head, and furtively crossed 
himself. 

Jack had hoped that by appealing to the better 
nature of the actor, he would evince his regret for his 
flippancy, and perhaps offer an apology; but the cyn¬ 
ical sneer on Benton’s face disillusionized Jack on that 
score. His wrath arose at the sight of the actor’s 
contemptuous expression, and his voice shook with scorn 
as he said: 

“Those delicate women, and those Sisters belong to 
the same sex, the same womanhood that you, you lump 
of corruption, dare to foul with your dirty, rotten 
stories!” 

“Good for you, young feller,” came from one of the 
card-players in the background. 

Benton, shaking with amusement, gracefully flicked 
the ash off his cigar, and drawled in a sing-song, “In 
fine or wet weather, they’re always together . . . .” He 


52 


SOULS IN HELL 


leaned forward with a gesture of a teacher instructing 
a pupil. “Isn’t it significant, my dear boy, that where 
there is a nun, you will always find a big, fat priest? 
Did you ever wonder ‘why’?” 

The blood surged up into Jack’s throat. His ears 
sang with the intensity of the pressure. Ripping out 
an oath, his fist crashed against the actor*s jaw with 
a sickening thud! 

Coming unexpectedly, Benton had no time to ward 
off the blow. He fell backward, along with his heavy 
chair, in a heap on the floor. The passengers were no 
less surprised, and, for the moment, looked stunned. 
It was so sudden! Benton, much sobered by the blow, 
struggled to his feet. He had turned deathly white; 
all the evil in his nature on top. Seizing the heavy 
glass carafe from the table, he lurched forward to where 
Jack stood, cold as ice, awaiting the attack, promising 
himself he would not spare Benton the thrashing he 
deserved. The men near the table, however, were not 
disposed to look on with indifference at what promised 
to be an unequal combat. Some bit of manhood in their 
natures had awakened. They threw themselves on the 
enraged actor and wrested the decanter out of his 
grasp; while he, speechless with a white rage, strug¬ 
gled to get at his assailant. 

“No, no! That’s too much of a good thing,” pro¬ 
tested one; “to go for a wounded man that way!” 

“Leave him alone, and let him come,” Jack advised 
in a cold, even voice. “The vile, rotten cur. He ought 
to be thrown overboard!” 

With a snarl of rage the actor broke loose from 
their hold; and, with his fingers curved like the talons 


SOULS IN HELL 


53 


of an unclean bird of prey, rushed at the aviator. 
Gauging the distance as the enraged actor came, Jack 
swerved aside and met the onslaught with a solid punch 
just below Benton’s ear, knocking him over the table, 
and on to the floor where he lay inert. 

“Perhaps that will shut his mouth for awhile,” mut¬ 
tered Jack grimly, when he saw the effect of his blow. 
That old boxing trick had many times before served him 
in good stead, but he had never felt such elation over 
its success as he did now; all the fight was knocked 
out of Benton. 

Hearing the commotion, two of the ship’s officers 
rushed in to see what all the noise was about. 

“What’s the trouble?” one of them asked Jack. 

“The dirty blackguard was airing his opinions of 
women, and as I once had a mother, I couldn’t stand 
it any longer ; so I gave him a bit of what is due him.” 

“And a little bit of all right, all right, I should say 
from the look of him,” the officer chortled, rubbing his 
chin and tilting his head! judicially. 

“Good for you,” the other officer joined in; “I’ve 
been longing to hand him one myself. I hope you 
gave it to him good and plenty ; the conceited ass 
needs taking down a peg or two.” 

“It was a peach of a smash ,j believe me,” chimed in 
one of the passengers, rubbing his hands in enjoyment. 
“Looked like one of Kid McCoy’s corkscrews!” 

“He deserved it all right,” announced another. 

“He sure did,” came from one of Benton’s audience. 

Jack looked fixedly at the last speaker. “Yet you 
men, who are old enough to know better, encouraged 
him in his dirty talk by listening to him. You are fine 


54 


SOULS IN HELL 


specimens of men. I wonder that you could sit listening 
to him slandering your own wives and mothers. The 
damn scamp! A bullet would be too good for the vile 
Bkunk!” 

With a look of scorn, Jack went out on deck, leav¬ 
ing the others to help the officers take the slowly re¬ 
viving actor to his stateroom. 


III. 


Hamilton the artist was working strenuously on a 
drawing; trying to make up for lost time. His model, 
by promises of more work in the immediate future, had 
been persuaded to break an engagement with her 
“steady company” to give him the extra evening hours. 
She wasO now standing on the model’s throne, posing 
for one of the characters in the drawing. After a 
couple of deep-drawn sighs (for the artist’s benefit) 
and! a prolonged yawn (when he was looking at her) 
as a preliminary warning, she asked in a weary tone, 
“Can I take a rest now?” 

Hamilton glanced at her in surprise. “Good gracious! 
Are you tired already? Why you haven’t been there 
more than ten or fifteen minutes!” 

The girl let her figure sag into an attitude of weari¬ 
ness; making the pose express something very different 
from what was desired. 

“Tired already ? Huh! you’d be tired if you had 
to hold this pose,” she retorted. “You artists must 
sit up of nights scheming out difficult poses. I’ve had 
nothing but standing poses all the week.” 

“What the dickens do you expect? Nice reclining 
poses on soft cushions, with somebody to fan you and 
give you ice-cream, I suppose.” 

55 


56 


SOULS IN HELL 


“Easy for you to talk!” she exclaimed, tossing her 
head. “Just standing at an easel, smoking cigarettes 
while you draw. You’ve got a cinch!” 

“A 11 r i g h t,” he drawled; “Take a rest.” 

He had heard that “spiel”—as he called it—so often, 
he knew it was sheer waste of time to argue the point. 
The model belied her assertion by jumping gaily olf 
the throne, and flopping on to a cushion alongside the 
tabouret on which was the planchette. Inwardly curs¬ 
ing his stupidity of employing the girl, and vowing 
that he would not engage her again after he had fin¬ 
ished with this batch of illustrations, Hamilton worked 
on the background of his drawing; every now and then 
stepping away from his easel to see the effect of his 
work. 

His doorbell rang. As he turned to admit Ins visi¬ 
tors, the door opened and the Cogans appeared in the 
entrance. 

“May we come in?” inquired Cogan walking into the 
room. “Hard at it, eh?” 

“Yeh, hard at it,” repeated the artist, catching sight 
of Mrs. Cogan, and wondering who she was. 

“I am Mrs. Tom Cogan,” she announced as she saw 
the look of inquiry. She held out her hand. 

“Oh! pardon, Kitty,” Cogan cut in; “I thought you 
had met Hamilton. Allow me to introduce to you the 
hardest worker in the profession, Mr. George Hamilton, 
who is as lazy as he is long, and as full of excuses as 
he is of talent.” 

“That’s a fine send-off, isn’t it?” laughed Mrs. Co¬ 
gan merrily. 

“Tom’s bark is worse than his bite,” returned Hamil- 


SOULS IN HELL 


57 


ton, smiling. “Probably you know that without my 
telling you.” 

“And it is a darned lucky thing for you scamps 
that it is,” the editor retorted jovially. “You fellows 
get all the barks from me, but I get all the bites from 
the boss!” 

“That’s just as it should be,” grinned Hamilton; 
“seeing what a hefty brute he has to bite. Now if he 
tried to bite me, he’d find nothing but bones to break 
his teeth on.” 

Laughing joyously at the passage of words, Mrs. 
Cogan gazed round the studio with an admiring in¬ 
terest. 

“Judging from all the pictures and sketches you have 
here, you cannot be so very lazy, Mr. Hamilton. Are 
they all your work?” 

“All but a few done by some of my fellow daubers.” 

“May I be nosey, and look around while you are 
talking business with my poor defenceless hubby?” 

“Yes, indeed you may.” He returned her smile with 
interest, his artist faculties aroused by her beauty. 
“Please make yourself at home; this is Liberty Hall.” 
As she nodded her smiling thanks, the lights above the 
model’s throne beyond streamed over her shoulders and 
bust, and caught the edge of her head; bringing into 
high relief her voluptuous figure and beautiful face 
crowned with a mass of dark reddish wavy hair. One 
of those accidental effects which delight the soul of an 
artist, and makes his fingers itch for brushes and 
colours. 

“Jove! but she’d make a stunning picture!” ex¬ 
claimed Hamilton to himself. 


SOULS IN HELL 


58 

“Well, how are you getting along with my stuff?” 
inquired Cogan examining the drawing on the easel. 
“Which is this, number one or number two?” 

“That’s the last; thank goodness. Here are the 
others.” Hamilton brought from a shelf the other 
drawings, and stood them against the model’s throne 
for Cogan’s inspection. 

While her husband was looking at the drawings, Mrs. 
Cogan made a tour of the studio, admiring the many 
small sketches on the walls, and wondering if she could 
induce her husband to buy one or two of them for their 
home. When she and her husband entered the studio, 
she noticed the model squatting on the cushion; now, 
approaching her, and seeing the girl so interested in 
the queer-shaped thing on the taboret, she wondered 
what it was. She stood for a while watching the er¬ 
ratic movements of the planchette, then, catching sight 
of her husband buttoning his coat, indicating that his 
immediate business with the artist was finished, she 
strolled over to where the two men were talking. Touch¬ 
ing the artist lightly on his arm, and giving a sidelong 
glance and nod toward the model, she whispered: 

“Excuse my feminine curiosity, but what’s the . . .” 
she paused for the word. 

“Oh, that? That’s a new stunt!” Hamilton smiled 
and turned to Cogan. “Have you seen it, Tom?” 

The editor looked toward the model, and shook his 
head. 

“No; what is it? A new game of solitaire?” 

Hamilton sniggered. “Not exactly. Come over and 
see how it works. It may interest you.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


59 


They followed! the artist to where the model was sit¬ 
ting on the cushion. 

“Miss Miller, this is Mr. and Mrs. Cogan,” he said, 
by way of introduction. “They haven’t seen this plan- 
chette stunt. Perhaps you’ll tell them how it works.” 

The model acknowledged the introduction with a curt 
nod, annoyed at the interruption. 

“First of all it isn’t a ‘stunt;’ it is very serious,” 
she retorted with a fling. “I rest my fingers , on the 
planchette, and someone in the spirit world guides the 
planchette so that it writes a message.” 

Mrs. Cogan glanced at the men with an amused ex¬ 
pression of incredulity. Her husband smiled good-na¬ 
turedly. This, evidently, was only another of the nu¬ 
merous fads and fancies of Bohemia; and freaks and 
fads of the studio tribe were to him an old, old tale. 

His wife bent over the girl’s shoulder, and her eyes 
followed the movements of the planchette. 

“Why, Tom, it is writing!” she exclaimed. 

Cogan squatted down on his heels in front of the 
tabouret to watch the performance. 

“Who, did you say, does the writing?” he asked the 
girl. 

“Spirits, in the spirit world,” was her grave answer. 

“Hm! I’ll bet a dollar that’s old Horace Greeley 
writing now. Just like his scrawl. It was so bad,” he 
explained to Hamilton, “that most of the time he 
couldn’t read it himself!” 

“If the writing is any criterion,” Mrs. Cogan chimed 
in, “that poor spirit needs a bromo-seltzer badly. He 
is evidently suffering from an extreme case of ‘jazz.’ ” 


60 SOULS IN HELL 

“Kind of looks as if he had been out all night with 
the boys, doesn’t it?” Hamilton ventured with a grin. 

“Prohibition hasn’t struck his town yet, that is sure,” 
the editor opined. 

“Spirits come from the spirit world, don’t they?” 
Mrs. Cogan asked with an assumption of innocence. 

“Gee! That guy makes me feel thirsty, the way 
he is wobbling.” Hamilton wiped his lips reminis¬ 
cently. 

They all laughed when the model straightened up, 
looking hurt and disgusted at their levity. 

“You can laugh, and crack cheap jokes all you want. 
I know it is true!” 

“Well, come now. If it is a spirit that is doing the 
writing, why can’t he or she do it without having your 
hand on the board?” Cogan asked, conciliatingly. “Be 
easier to move without your hand, I should imagine.” 

“Ah! that’s just what I want to know,” cut in 
Hamilton. 

“I am sure I don’t know why,” drawled the girl with 
a shrug. “If you like, I’ll ask them to give you the 
answer.” 

Cogan caught his wife’s eye; she shook her head 
positively. 

“Some other time, perhaps. Tonight we have to 
catch a train.” 

The model’s only response was a quick lift of her 
shoulders. 

“Well, now, old chap,” Cogan said, rising to an up¬ 
right position, “will you have the drawings at the of¬ 
fice tomorrow? I want to get them to the engravers 
as soon as I can. We are behind time as it is.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


61 


“Yep! I’ll have them down there by noon at the 
latest.” 

“Sure now?” 

“Abso-positively certain,” laughed the artist. 

“All right, old man; I’ll depend on you. Good night, 
Miss . . .” Cogan had already forgotten her name. 
“Sorry not to be able to get some new dope from my 
old friend Greeley.” 

“Good nighty” the girl replied in a detached tone. 
She was too much engrossed in the planchette to retort 
to Cogan’s quip. 

Mrs. Cogan shook hands with Hamilton, and wished 
him good night. “I want to come again, sometime. 
I have fallen in love with one or two of your sketches, 
and perhaps my hubby will be rich enough next time 
we come to buy them for me.” She waved her hand 
to a group of water-colors on the wall. 

^‘Suppose we won’t wait until hubby is rich enough,” 
Hamilton suggested. “Suppose you accept them as a 
souvenir of your visit.” 

“That is very generous and lovely of you, and I 
appreciate it very much; but I couldn’t think of tak¬ 
ing advantage of your kindness. You have to live, like 
the rest of us; so you wait, and I’ll give you some real 
money for them.” 

“I know, but ...” Hamilton paused, wondering if 
on such short acquaintance, he could risk offering her 
the sketches as a return for her giving him sittings for 
a picture. 

“I’ll come again, soon,” Mrs. Cogan assured him. 
“Good night.” 

“Yes, do. Good night.” 


62 


SOULS IN HELL 


Cogan had gone out into the corridor to the ele¬ 
vator, and pushed the button; his wife joined him at 
the same time the elevator shot up to their floor. When 
the elevator gate opened, Tracy, the short-story writer 
—a contributor to Cogan’s magazine—stepped out. 

“Hullo, Tom; what are you doing in town? And— 
Mrs. Cogan, by all the Gods! Why, beloved lady, I 
haven’t seen your beautiful self for an age! How are 
you? You look well.” Tracy shook hands with her, 
delighted to see her again. 

“Of course she is looking well,” Cogan said. “Why 
shouldn’t she, when she has me to look after her and 
pamper her?” 

“Look after her! You mean she looks after you; 
you big bluff. Ye gods! but you are a lucky beggar! 
They say it is better to be born lucky than beautiful; 
but when one is both beautiful and lucky, like you, 
why. . . .” 

“Ye-eh!” Cogan replied ^sarcastically. “I am so 
overwhelmed with my own pulchritude, I dare not have 
a mirror in my room; and every time I go out I am 
in mortal fear that some grass widow or other will steal 
me!” 

“Some beauty!” Mrs. Cogan gazed at her husband 
in mock admiration. 

“Going down,” the elevator man warned in a dr}- 
tone. 

“Yes! hold your horses now; just a second,” cried 
Cogan. He turned to Tracy. “Say, old man, we’ve 
just come from Hamilton’s. He has old Horace Gree¬ 
ley in there. You ought to go in and have a talk 
with him; might get some pointers from him.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


63 

Enjoying the joke, the Cogans got into the elevator, 
which descended leaving Tracy mystified. 

“Horace Greeley,” he muttered. “I s’pose Ham is 
doing a picture of him.” 

He rang Hamilton’s door-bell. 

“Did you meet Cogan and his wife? They just left 
—a few moments ago,” the artist announced when he 
opened the door. “She is a beauty; didn’t know he 
had such a lovely wife.” 

“Yes, I met them as I got out of the elevator. Tom 
told me to come in here and see Horace Greeley. Are 
you making a portrait of him?” 

The artist exploded with laughter. Pointing to the 
planchette, he explained the joke. Tracy glanced 
toward the tabouret, and nodded to the model whom he 
knew by sight. 

“Did you ever try planchette, Mr. Tracy? To get 
ideas for your stories?” she asked. 

“I should say . . . not!” Tracy replied in a tone 
of contempt. “That thing is only good to amuse old 
women who have nothing better to do with their time. 
I get my ideas inspirationally.” He put his hand above 
his head, and, shutting his fist, made a gesture as if 
grabbing an idea and yanking it down out of the at¬ 
mosphere. 

Hamilton, who was working on his drawing, turned 
and shook his stick of charcoal warningly. “Don’t you 
go telling Cogan that; it might queer your stories 
with him. He is very sceptical.” 

Tracy laughed quietly. “Yes, I know Cogan is 
too materialistic to believe in such things.” He shook 
his head, thoughtfully. “Funny, when you come to 


64 


SOULS IN HELL 


think of it. He is a man who goes to church and be¬ 
lieves in a heaven and hell; but when I talk about su¬ 
per-normal things to him, he only laughs in a condes¬ 
cending way, and pooh-poohs the whole business.” 

The model glanced at Tracy, and nodded her agree¬ 
ment with his sentiments. “One would think he would 
know better, seeing that his own Bible contains lots 
of instances of spirit communication,” she drawled in 
a contemptuous voice. “But perhaps, like most of 
these people who go to church, he doesn’t read his 
Bible.” 

“And the lives of the saints are full of instances, 
too,” added Tracy; “but perhaps as I’ve not yet been 
canonized, my little say-so does not count for much.” 
He chuckled humorously. 

“Well, say, Tracy, honest now; do you think that 
spirits manipulate that thing?” Hamilton pointed to 
the planchette. 

“Don’t ask me!” exclaimed Tracy. “I know very 
little about it. I do know, however, that I, person¬ 
ally have no use for it. As I told you: I get my stuff 
inspirationally.” 

“Hmp! I must confess that that is just so much 
Greek to me,” responded the artist. “All I know about 
my stuff is: I’ve got to sweat and plug like the devil 
until it looks right; and believe me, sometimes it’s some 
job!” He turned to the girl. “Say, Miss Miller, come 
along and give me another half hour, so that I can 
break the back of this job, and get it in shape for 
tomorrow.” 


IV. 


The Cogans arrived at the terminal just in time 
to catch the out-going 8.10 train. 

Their home in Malvern Beach—to which they were 
now speeding—was a two story stuccoed frame house 
of the kind generally found in American suburban com¬ 
munities, where speculative builders buy a piece of land 
and on it build whole blocks of houses made of “mill” 
material; and, with the exception of minor differences 
of details, of the same pattern. Situated apart from 
its neighbors at a distance of about twenty feet on 
each side, it had the usual apology for a lawn in front, 
some flower beds at the side, and a kitchen garden in 
the rear. 

Mrs. Cogan was constantly at her husband to build 
a little house of their own; she did not care how small 
and unpretentious so long as it was theirs. She sug¬ 
gested that if he did not think it wise to use the little 
nest egg in the local bank for that purpose, there were 
other ways and means; building it on the installment 
plan—for instance, or borrowing money from his em¬ 
ployer (the owner of the magazine) and paying him 
back so much a month. She argued that it would be 
merely paying the equivalent of the rent to his “boss” 
instead of giving it to the landlord. Her husband 
65 


66 


SOULS IN HELL 


sympathized with her desires, but did not like the idea 
of being in debt to anyone; not even to please her. He 
disliked being under obligations to other people, and 
he had a horror of debts; being always afraid that he 
might be unable to meet them. “Don’t you worry, 
and get a lot of ugly lines in your lovely face,” he 
was fond of saying. “When my ship comes home, and 
it will be soon now, you shall have the prettiest little 
ranch in this village. When I put one of my plays 
across, and get it produced, we shall have money enough 
to build a palace.” And he had hopes; for the the¬ 
atrical man who was acting as his selling agent had 
fallen in love with one of his comedies, and felt fairly 
certain of landing it with one of the New York man¬ 
agers. Meantime, while waiting for the proceeds of 
the, as yet, unproduced play to materialize, Mrs. Co- 
gan had to be content in making the house she had as 
cozy and artistic as her means allowed. 

When she and her husband arrived home after a walk 
of twenty minutes from the railroad station, they found 
their only child, Harold, now nearly five years old, and 
the servant girl, Maggie, at the dinner table, finishing 
their evening meal. 

The young hopeful had half a dozen toys of various 
sorts lined up in a semi-circle on the table behind his 
plate. He had insisted on sharing his custard dessert 
with them, and had tried to feed them out of his spoon; 
with the result that the faces of the Teddy Bear and 
the other toy figures were besmeared with custard, giv¬ 
ing them most ludicrous expressions. Between spoon¬ 
fuls he kissed the Bear and his especial favorite—a 
large toy French soldier that his Uncle Jack had sent 


SOULS IN HELL 


67 


from France, so that his own chubby face was plastered 
with the stuff. When he heard the front door open, 
and his mother’s “coo-hoo,” he hastily slid off his high 
chair and ran into the corridor, yelling out an answer¬ 
ing “coo-hoo” to his parents. His father caught him 
up in his arms to kiss him, but stopped in time to avoid 
being smeared with the custard. 

“Good lord, Kitty; just look at this kid’s mug!” 
He held the youngster at arm’s length for his mother’s 
inspection. “There’s a picture for an artist. There’s 
a picture that beats anything Hamilton can do into a 
cocked hat.” 

“Oh! Oh! you dear little kiddlums! How can mum- 
sie kiss such a face as that?” Mrs. Cogan went into 
gales of merriment at the comical appearance of the 
child. “Did you ever see such a map?” 

She followed her husband and boy into the dining 
room. 

“Why on earth did you let him do it, Maggie?” 

“I couldn’t stop him, mum,” the servant replied be¬ 
tween laughs. She pointed to the toys; the sight threw 
Mrs. Cogan into another paroxysm. The child stood 
blinking at his elders, wondering, with a blank look, 
what all the merriment was about. 

“Ain’t ’oo doin’ to tith me?” he lisped petulantly 
to his mother. 

“Sure I will, sweetheart; as soon as I can find a 
clean spot,” she said, laughing as she wiped his face 
with a napkin. Then she smothered the child’s face with 
kisses as she hugged him to her bosom; calling him all 
the endearing names she could think of. 

“I’m going to look over this truck, Kitty,” said 


68 


SOULS IN HELL 


Cogan, indicating the parcel of manuscripts he had 
brought home with him; “so that I can get off for a 
couple of hours tomorrow to go to the pier.” 

“All right,” she answered, as he turned to go to his 
study. “Better kiss this young pagan ‘good night’ 
now, Tom; for. . .” she addressed the youngster, tap¬ 
ping his nose playfully with her finger, “he is going 
to bye-bye, right away.” 

Cogan laughed as he kissed the boy and pinched his 
cheek; then went out of the room to continue his edi¬ 
torial duties. 


& 


Next morning, the Cogans were up bright and early. 
Harold, full of excitement and expectancy, could hard¬ 
ly contain himself for joy; for his Uncle Jack was com¬ 
ing home on a big ship, and would arrive today. 

Uncle Jack at that time was at the rail on deck, 
looking through field-glasses at the stretch of land dim¬ 
ly seen in the haze of the mist on the water; his mind 
occupied with pleasant thoughts of his home-coming. 
Hearing himself addressed by a suave voice, he turned 
to see Benton, the actor, at his side. 

“Mr. Waller,” the actor began, with an ingratiat¬ 
ing smile, “I. . . had too much to drink last night, 
and . . . well . . . you know how it is. We say and 
do things . . . mm ... I want to apologize for what 
I said,” he ended lamely. 

Waller glanced at the hand Benton held out to him, 


SOULS IN HELL 


69 


then looked sternly at his eyes. “I accept your apol¬ 
ogy for what you said to me, but your opinions regard¬ 
ing women are evidently too deeply rooted for you to 
change them, overnight; so I’ll be damned if I shake 
hands with a reptile like you!” And with a look of 
contemptuous loathing, the aviator walked away. 

Benton went white, and his hands shook with anger. 
His face contorted with hate, he looked evilly after 
Waller. “Reptile, am IP By God, I’ll remember 
you for that! You . . . damned . . . pup!” He spat 
out; the words through his clenched teeth. “If I ever 
get the chance. . . He drew a deep breath which he 
exhaled with a hissing sound. 

He little thought how closely the web of Fate had 
enmeshed them. How soon its tangled threads were 
to tighten, and again bring them together. 




Cogan left the house to catch an early train, while 
his wife busied herself preparing to meet her brother 
at the pier. On his arrival at the village station, he 
bought a copy of the local paper, which announced 
in large headlines the appointment of the new District 
Attorney. 

“What do you think of the news, Cogan?” inquired 
one of a group of men waiting for the train. 

“I think it is about time! I hope he will start in 
clearing the hoboes out of this village; they are get¬ 
ting to be a confounded nuisance.” 


TO 


SOULS IN HELL 


The others agreed with him. Their wives had all, 
at one time or other, suffered from the insults and 
depredations of the numerous tramps that made Mal¬ 
vern Beach a stopping-off place on their way to the city. 

“So far as I am concerned,” chimed in one of the 
men, “he can get busy right away; the quicker the 
sooner. I can’t afford to lose three perfectly new silk 
shirts at one clip.” 

“Huh! You got off easy,” said another. “I am 
minus a dress suit! I’d dearly like to have a ten min¬ 
utes session with the bum that swiped it. Ten minutes 
is all I ask!” 

“Well, if this new guy isn’t any better than the last 
one—the grafter! why. . . .” 

“They do say that this duck is one of those very 
rare birds, an honest official. Plays no favorites, and as 
cold-blooded as a clam.” 

“Seems rather too good to be true; but I hope he 
is,” Cogan said decisively. “That’s the kind of man 
I like; and that’s the kind we need in public life.” 

“That’s right,” agreed the first speaker. “Now you 
are saying something. We need ’em all right!” 

In the train the qualifications of the new District 
Attorney were discussed at length; all those who knew 
of his antecedents and official life agreeing that his rep¬ 
utation for honesty was second to none. He was 
straight as a die; and as free from emotion as the pro¬ 
verbial clam. 

During the dreary, heart breaking period a few 
weeks later, Cogan would have been thankful more than 
once if the Attorney’s cold-bloodedness were less in evi¬ 
dence; more a figure of speech, and less of a reality. 


V. 


In the city—the city that never sleeps, where there 
is always “something doing” day and night—our friend 
Tracy, the short-story writer, dressed in a pair of 
old trousers, a battered pair of carpet slippers on his 
feet, and a well-browned corn-cob pipe in his mouth, 
was sitting at his working table, staring glumly at his 
typewriter. 

For the past two hours he had pounded on his ma¬ 
chine, writing page after page, only to tear them up 
in disgust. On the table, besides his working mate¬ 
rials, was a large tin can which, at some time in the 
past, had held coffee, but now formed the receptacle 
for coarse cut tobacco; also a pot of strong coffee 
and an ancient-looking china mug from which he took 
big daughts between pipes. 

His usual working hours were from late in the eve¬ 
ning to the early hours of morning. He found that the 
comparative quiet of the night was more conducive 
to doing creative work; his ideas came quicker and with 
more fluidity; his brain processes worked easier and 
with less strain than during the day. Such was his 
custom; for which he had a reason. 

He claimed that in the daytime, people who were 
strenuously striving in the battle of life, scheming how 

71 


SOULS IN HELL 


72 

to outwit their fellows, created a veritable maelstrom 
in the thought atmosphere; and as the plane of ideas 
was, so to speak, above the thought-plane of ordinary 
business,—the business of buying and selling,—it was 
difficult for him to make the necessary connections with 
the higher plane of thought ; the slender thread being 
constantly broken by the coarse vibrations of the war¬ 
ring elements of the lower thought-plane. At night, 
when most people were sleeping and at rest, the lower 
thought-plane was comparatively quiet and less turbu¬ 
lent; with the result that it was much easier to make 
his connection with the upper plane, and also to hold 
it. 

It was one of his many “queer” notions; and he 
was full of such strange fancies. 

Generally speaking, he had only to throw himself 
on his lounge (which also served as a bed), close his 
eyes for fifteen or twenty minutes, and ideas would 
flow into his consciousness in a steady stream; mar¬ 
shalling themselves almost automatically into sequences 
of connected action. As he often remarked with a dry 
smile, his stories wrote themselves; all he did was type 
them. But now, the ideas would not come! At least, 
not ideas of any value. A half-baked, hazy sugges¬ 
tion would seep up in his mind, he would try it out for 
a few pages, then the thing would peter out into noth¬ 
ingness. A blind alley! He had been doing that all 
night! Always with the same result! And he would 
end his attempt at a story with a string of oral pyro¬ 
technics too lurid to print! 

Reading over the lines on the partly typed page in 
his machine, he muttered a malediction on the evil fate 


SOULS IN HELL 


73 


that had induced him to turn to story writing as a 
means of livelihood, yanked the sheet of paper out of 
the typewriter, crushed it into a ball, then viciously 
threw it into his waste-paper basket. 

“Punk! Punk! Worthless, inane fribbly namby- 
pamby, damned punk!” he exploded. “What the devil 
is wrong with me, anyway? And always happens when 
I need some dough. Darn it!” 

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, refilled and 
lit it; then leaned back in his chair, glaring sulkily 
at the unoffending typewriter while he probed the re¬ 
cesses of his memory for an idea on which to build a 
story. 

If Tracy had been clairvoyant, he would have un¬ 
derstood the why and wherefore of not only his present 
inability to get an idea for a story, but many other 
things which at one time perplexed and puzzled him, 
and, at other times, filled him with elation and exalta¬ 
tion. Near him and unseen by his physical vision were 
two forms; in common parlance they would be called 
“spirits.” 

In our western world, if the average man were asked 
“what is a spirit?” he probably would hesitate and be 
at a loss for a definition; and quite as probably end up 
by saying that a spirit was what a man became after 
death. If pressed for a more definite description, he 
would most likely confess his ignorance. 

While it is certain (as anything can be in this 
world) that a man’s life here on earth has a limit; 
that although he may live beyond the scriptural alloted 
three score years and ten, he is sure that sometime he 
will die; yet the greater number of human beings know 


74 


SOULS IN HELL 


practically nothing of what they may expect after they 
pass out of this life. It is true they are told by their 
pastors that there is a heaven of bliss for those who are 
“saved,” and a hell of torment awaiting those evil-doers 
who have not been saved; although in our fashionable 
churches today preachers employ their talents expati¬ 
ating on the joys of the heaven-life rather than insult 
their pew-holders by pointing out the penalties of hell; 
such talk of retribution being very much out of place 
—in a fashionable gathering. We are told by our 
spiritual advisors that heaven and hell are eternal— 
although the latter is not so bad as it was fifty years 
ago; that while a man may have been one of the vilest 
of men all through his life, yet, if he repents—even 
at the eleventh hour (which he is certain to do through 
fear, if for no other reason)-—he goes to a heaven 
of everlasting happiness. On the other hand: in the 
case of the man, who, (although he has led a blame¬ 
less life), being tempted, temporarily falls and sins; if 
he happens to die while sinning, he goes to an eternal 
hell of torment! 

While not wishing to comment on the injustice and 
unreasonableness of this, it may be pointed out that this 
is about all the average man seems to know about a 
future state. If he is of an inquiring turn of mind, 
and asks those—who should be in a position to inform 
him—to tell him of the whereabouts of heaven and hell, 
to give him detailed information regarding the occu¬ 
pations of the man in the blissful or other state, he 
will find that so far as exact knowledge is concerned 
those who claim to be his spiritual leaders know no more 
than he himself\ knows. 


SOULS IN HELL 


75 


It is only within the last few decades that accounts 
of what purports to be the real life in the world to 
come have percolated into literature for general con¬ 
sumption, enabling persons who study along those lines 
of thought to accumulate data of various sorts and de¬ 
grees of trustworthiness regarding the so-called 
Heaven-world; also of the so-called Astral-world which 
separates the Heaven-world from; our Earth-world. 

To trained clairvoyants, the existence of the Astral- 
world and Heaven-world is not a question of belief, but 
of fairly exact knowledge. 

To such an one, the man who, after death, enters 
the astral world is, to all intents and purposes, the 
same man, bearing with him all his likes and dislikes, 
his loves and his hates, his desires good and bad; the 
same characteristics that distinguished him from his fel¬ 
lows while in this earth-world before death. He is the 
same individual minus his physical body, and is in a 
body composed of the material of the world in which 
he now is—the Astral-world. This body (called by St. 
Paul—I Cor: XV, 44— “soma psuchikon” —psychic 
body) he has had all through his earth-life; its par¬ 
ticles interpenetrating the particles of his physical body, 
but being of a very much finer matter than the physi¬ 
cal is not cognizable by physical sight. 

This digression is deemed necessary (and hoped par¬ 
donable) so that the uninitiated can more readily grasp 
the real meaning of the after-death state, and under¬ 
stand more clearly the happenings which played such 
a vital part in this drama of metropolitan life; for 
the filmy wall separating the astral from the earth life 
is thin, very very thin. The inhabitants of the astral 


76 


SOULS IN HELL 


(the so-called “dead”) have for ages influenced, and 
are at present influencing and affecting those on earth; 
sometimes for good, ofttimes for evil. 

To return, to our story, and to Tracy’s two discar- 
nate visitors ;—the iso-called “spirits.” 

They were, as already said, two male forms; men 
who had crossed into the “great beyond” some years 
before. When on earth, they had been bosom friends; 
one an artist, the other an author. They both had 
learned that one of the ways to progress out of the 
astral condition and attain to the heaven-world was 
by helping their fellows in both astral and earth worlds; 
in the latter case, by throwing suggestions and ideas 
into the consciousness of incarnated men , giving them 
higher and more ideal conceptions. Being aware of 
Tracy’s dilemma (for emotional states are plainly vis¬ 
ible on the astral plane, the astral body being that 
part of us with which we express our desires and emo¬ 
tions), the two discamate friends had appeared on the 
scene, and now stood watching the surging colors of 
his aura as its atoms vibrated—the result of his emo¬ 
tional state. 

“Your protege seems to be having trouble again.” 
the discamate artist remarked with a smile. “Appar¬ 
ently, he is ‘stuck’ for want of ideas. Are you going 
to help him?” 

“No, I don’t think I shall,” replied the discamate 
author. “The precious scamp is getting a swelled 
head. He boasts of his stories; his clever ideas! It 
may doi him some good to let him sweat a bit, it tnay 
take the conceit out of him; otherwise he may forget 
where he gets his inspiration from. That would be a 


SOULS IN HELL 


77 


pity, especially in his case; he is such a splendid fel¬ 
low otherwise.” 

The discarnate artist smiled sadly. “It is remark¬ 
able on what small achievements we develop the swelled 
head. Only for the gentle rod of correction, we would 
soon be monstrous egotists!” 

“Especially the man with creative ability,” the au¬ 
thor replied. “I think it will be for Tracy’s ultimate 
good to let him realize his own weakness, then he will 
keep his mind on higher things.” 

“If that is how you feel about him, suppose we move 
along.” 

“Are you doing anything in particular?” inquired the 
discarnate author. 

“Yes, indeed! There is a clever young chap, poor 
as a church mouse, struggling with a painting of an 
ideal type. He has caught some of the vision, and I 
want to help him get the rest of it. He has to do what 
he calls ‘commercial’ work to feed his body, and keep 
going while painting his picture; for he realizes, I 
imagine, that he hasn’t much time before he comes over 
to us. Poor chap, he will be glad to come! He isn’t 
coarse-fibred enough to cope successfully with earth 
conditions; but he is striving manfully and doing his 
best. As you know, there are but few buyers of paint¬ 
ings of a spiritual type. Men prefer to spend their 
money on things of a suggestive, sensual kind; things 
which appeal to their lower, animal nature.” 

“So it was in our day,” the discarnate author re¬ 
plied with a sigh. “The ‘seers’ starved while the writers 
of salacious novels rode in their carriages; their stom¬ 
achs stuffed to excess! Do you remember that club 


78 


SOULS IN HELL 


we drifted into the other evening? Where I pointed 
out to you one of the successful novelists of the day? 
A fellow that has become rich by writing novels so 
suggestive, so near the limit of decency that the Gov¬ 
ernment warned the publisher of the magazine in which 
they were appearing, to tone down the suggestive pas¬ 
sages, and to be more careful in the future, other¬ 
wise . . he shrugged his shoulders significantly. 

“And all in the name of ‘art!’ ”—the artist ex¬ 
claimed. “How very few of them know what art really 
means. That is why I am so interested in this young 
man; he is full of the divine fire of art, burning his 
gross physical body away at its altar.” 

“I shall be glad to go with you; for next to watch¬ 
ing a musician catching supernal melodies, seeing an 
artist transferring his inner vision onto canvas is my 
greatest delight.” 

“Come along then, and we’ll leave my friend Tracy 
to learn his lesson of humility.” 




Although of an impressionable, psychic type, Tracy 
had not the gift of clairvoyant sight; so he knew but 
little of the rationale of what he called “getting an 
idea.” He was vaguely aware of what Plato calls the 
“Plane of Ideas”—the Ideal World, but whether ideas 
were hanging on pegs like articles in a store, or were 
floating listlessly about to finally lodge in somebody’s 
brain waiting for them, he did not know; truth to tell, 


SOULS IN HELL 


79 


he had never given much thought to that aspect of the 
matter. He, like others, would say: “An idea struck 
me,” or “An idea came to mebut it did not occur 
to him to wonder why or how they came. He did not 
know that thoughts are living things , that they must 
have an origin somewhere , and in some entity’s con¬ 
sciousness. He did not realize that as those ideas were 
of a much higher type, and displayed more intelligence 
and cleverness than his intellectual brain could invent, 
they indicated their source as being of a higher nature 
than that of his physical brain. He was unaware, too, 
that intelligence of various and different grades extend¬ 
ed from the intelligence of the earth inhabitants all 
the way up, through higher and still higher and greater 
Intelligences, to the Throne of INTELLIGENCE 
ITSELF,—which we call “GOD.” 

In spite of the fact that he had had numerous in¬ 
stances in his own life of strange “accidents,” “coin¬ 
cidences,” and interventions at critical times, he had 
not sounded the deeper truth that all these happenings 
are not due to “chance,” but are according to the work¬ 
ing of Cosmic Law, carried into effect by Greater and 
Lesser Intelligences who are the instruments of that 
LAW. 




Thrown on his own resources, Tracy cudgelled his 
tired, overworked brain to discover something that 
would serve as the basis of a story. He delved into 


80 


SOULS IN HELL 


the recesses of his memory, but that proving non-pro¬ 
ductive, got from a drawer-file—in which he kept such 
data—a lot of newspaper and magazine clippings, over 
which he skimmed with the hope of finding some in¬ 
cident that would stimulate his writer’s inventive fac¬ 
ulty. His search for material was interrupted by the 
ringing of his telephone bell; Tom Cogan being at the 
other end of the wire. 

“Hello, Tracy, old scout! Say! I want a good strong 
story; the usual length. Try and think up a good 
plot will you, and let me have the synopsis as soon as 
you can. Tomorrow, if possible.” 

Tracy laughed silently. “All right, old man; I’ll do 
the best I can.” 

He put the phone down, looked at his typewriter, 
and snorted in amusement at the grim joke—being 
asked for a “good, strong story” when he couldn’t 
scare up an idea of any sort. Walking over to his 
working table, he refilled his corn-cob; then paced up 
and down the narrow strip of carpet running the length 
of his room—thinking. 

Again he was disturbed. This time by a knock on 
the door. 

“Somebody wanting a best seller, probably,” he 
muttered, ironically. “If it is, he will have to pay 
me cash on account.” 

Opening the door, he disclosed to view the sour 
visage of the landlord’s clerk with the monthly bill for 
rent in his hand. 

“Ah! Yes, yes! The ever welcome tax gatherer, 
eh?” he exclaimed in a jocular tone. 

The clerk did not crack a smile. He knew only too 


SOULS IN HELL 


81 


well what the greeting portended; he had been there 
before. 

“Come along in a couple of days, and I’ll fix you 
up,” said Tracy with a wave of his hand. 

“It is overdue now, Mr. Tracy,” replied the clerk 
coldly. “Can’t you give me something on account?” 

“Not a stiver, old chappie! Not a red cent until I 
cash the million dollar check I expect to get in the 
near future.” 

“Good morning,” said the clerk, curtly. “I’ll call 
in tomorrow.” 

“Don’t you do it,” Tracy replied hastily; “you’ll 
only waste your time. Make it three or four days from 
now, and I’ll see what I can do.” 

He closed the door with a grin of amusement. With 
the reflection that “it never rains but it pours,” he sat 
down at his table. 

Staring blankly at the typewriter, his thoughts went 
back to the scene of the previous evening in Hamilton’s 
studio. He saw the model curled up on the cushion 
with the planchette; he heard her question, “did you 
every try planchette to get ideas for your stories?” and 
remembered his contemptuous reply. He found himself 
wondering if the contraption he had ridiculed might 
not, after all, be of some use to him. He was aware 
that the literary sensation of a year or so ago had 
been given out to the world as having been written by 
the aid of a ouija board; perhaps this planchette thing 
could be of use to him. This digging up new ideas 
for stories was no joke! He recalled that someone had 
said there were only about three dozen basic plots, and 


SOULS IN HELL 


82 

that all stories are but these thirty-six plots rehashed 
in a new dress, or with a new twist. 

“Great Scott! I’ve done them so often, there doesn’t 
seem to be a new twist left,” he growled disconsolately. 
“I’ve a durned good mind to buy one of those things 
and try it.” 

Then he sniggered and shook with laughter, for he 
suddenly remembered how low his finances were, and 
that he didn’t have a dollar to his name; that he would 
probably be obliged to borrow carfare from one of his 
friends in order to submit his synopsis—when he 
evolved one—to Cogan. The thought of how close he 
was to rock-bottom made him cackle with amusement. 

The discamate author had either changed his inten¬ 
tion of letting Tracy “sweat awhile,” or had realized 
that he was sorely in need of money; for he now ap¬ 
peared behind Tracy. With a reminiscent expression, 
as though he remembered his own struggles and de¬ 
pressions when on earth, he proceeded, by throwing 
suggestions into Tracy’s brain, to give him the mental 
impression of the outlines of a story. 

As the suggestions were slowly translated into brain- 
images, Tracy smiled in anticipation of what was com¬ 
ing. 

He had often gone through the experience of having 
the outlines of a story come into his mind, seemingly 
from nowhere; unless it seeped up from his subcon¬ 
scious self—as the psychologists asserted. Sometimes, 
merely the outlines only; another time, the whole story 
en bloc , word for word, would come. Then again— 
and he couldn’t fathom the reason why—a dozen para¬ 
graphs or so would be all; then the cursed, exasperat- 


SOULS IN HELL 


83 


ing waiting (sometimes for days!) for the remainder. 
It was nothing new to him. Now, as the plot evolved 
and took definite shape, he seized a pad of paper and 
hurriedly jotted down the skeleton of what promised 
to be a strong story, such as Cogan had asked for. 

“Quite a new twist, too, by Jove!” Tracy chuckled, 
reading over his shorthand notes. “Absolutely a new 
twist!” 

His unseen helper (the discarnate author) also 
chuckled—with amusement. 

“A new twist, is it, Tracy? It may be new to you, 
but it had moss on it in ancient Atlantis; and even in 
old Egypt it was a hoary old chestnut. Oh! you clever, 
up-to-date moderns; you think you are the last word 
in civilization!” 

Fortunately for Tracy, he was not clairaudient; so 
did not hear the sarcastic comments of his unseen 
friend. 

Knocking the ashes out of his corn-cob, he recharged 
and lit it; then started banging away at top speed on 
his typewriter. 


VI. 


Arrived at the pier, Mrs. Cogan looked about in the 
crowd for her husband. She did not waste much time 
in this, for the liner had arrived earlier than had been 
expected, and was already moored in the dock, with 
the passengers on the pier awaiting the Customs Of¬ 
ficers to examine the baggage. Making her way to 
where the first-class passengers whose names began with 
“W” were standing, she caught sight of her brother 
Jack, and in a few moments had her arms tightly 
wound around his neck, kissing him excitedly between 
her sobs of joyful welcome. 

“Oh, Jack boy! You dear, darling laddie! You 
don’t know how glad I am to see you again.” Then 
more kissing and hugging. 

“I’m glad to be home again. You are looking tip¬ 
top, Kitty.” 

“I’m all right! How’s your arm. Does it pain 
you ?” 

“It’ll be O. K. in a week or so,” replied her brother, 
beginning to feel ill at ease. He saw that his sister’s 
extravagant actions made him the cynosure of every¬ 
one in sight. “Say, Kitty, old girl; cut out the fuss 
and hurrah, won’t you?” 

“Why should I?” she inquired, astonished. “I am 

84 


SOULS IN HELL 


85 


proud of you, and proud to show that I am proud of 
you, and . . looking defiantly at the passengers who 
were watching them with unfeigned interest, “. . .1 
don’t care who knows it. I’ll tell the world I am proud 
of you!” 

“Very well . . . Irish!” laughed Jack. 

His sister’s retort was nipped in the horning by the 
appearance of a Customs Officer. 

“Are you Mr. Waller, sir?” he asked. 

“Yes, sir; that’s my name.” 

“How many pieces of baggage have you, Mr. Wal¬ 
ler?” 

“This grip and two trunks,” replied Jack, proceed¬ 
ing to open the grip. He was stopped by the official 
who marked it “O. K.” “Why . . . er . . .” he looked 
inquiringly at the officer who was marking the trunks 
with the “Examined” mark. 

“The Chief presents his compliments, and says that 
if you will give me the address, he will have them for¬ 
warded to your destination at once.” 

“That’s . . . uh . . . unusual, isn’t it?” stammered 
Jack. 

“Orders from headquarters, I guess,” smiled the of¬ 
ficer. 

“Very kind of them, I am sure. Please thank the 
Chief for me, will you? Tell him I appreciate it very 
much.” 

“Yes, sir, I will,” He paused; then, hesitatingly, 
put out his hand. “I’d like to shake hands with you, 
Mr. Waller.” 

“With me?” asked Jack, surprised. “Sure thing; 
but why?” He grasped the outstretched hand. 


86 


SOULS IN HELL 


“We all feel proud of you; fighting off those six 
Huns and getting in with the dispatches, sir.” 

“Didn’t I tell you we were proud of you?” his sister 
chimed in ecstatically. 

Jack flushed beneath his tan, and looked uncomfort¬ 
able. To hide his embarrassment he turned to pick 
up his grip; but the officer was too quick for him. 

“Allow me, sir; I’ll show you the way out. Besides,” 
he added with a suspicion of a chuckle, “you’ve only 
one hand free, and you’ll need it before you get off 
the dock I’m thinking.” 

Jack Waller did not get the full import of the re¬ 
mark until he and his sister started to follow the of¬ 
ficer toward the street entrance. Every two or three 
steps a Customs Officer or employe of the Steamship 
Company was there with his hand outstretched, wait¬ 
ing to shake Jack’s in congratulation. His journey 
was a series of hand-clasps; every official on the pier 
apparently being there to give him a welcome home. 

His sister enj oyed the demonstration immensely; 
strutting at the side of her brother who was biting 
his lips in annoyance. Posing as a hero was not in 
his line. Benton, the actor, being near the top of the 
alphabetical list, had had his baggage examined and 
was already on his way to his hotel; otherwise, the fuss 
made over his fellow passenger and antagonist of the 
night before might have added a few more notes to 
his song of hate. 

When they got to the end of the handshaking, 
Jack found his voice. “Say, Kitty, where is Big 
Tom?” 


SOULS IN HELL 


87 


She laughed merrily. “Blest if I hadn’t forgotten 
all about the old dear! He promised to be here to 
meet you.” Her brother glanced around for a sight 
of Cogan. “Oh, ( if he were here, he’d have seen us 
long ago,” his sister assured him. “I suppose the 
poor soul wasn’t able to get away.” She caught sight 
of the telephone booths. “Wait a minute; I’ll phone 
him.” 

He followed her to the booth, and waited while she 
rang up her husband’s office. 

“Is that you, Tom?” she asked when the connection 
was made. “This is Kitty. Wait a minute.” She 
gave the receiver to her brother. 

“Hullo, you big stiff!” he boomed. “How are yer?” 
A broad smile developed into a roar of laughter as 
he listened to Cogan’s answer. “All right, old cough 
drop,” he snickered; “make it early. We’ll go on 
home, for I’m anxious to see the youngster.” He 
turned to his sister, his eyes sparkling with enjoy¬ 
ment. “Tom says that every mm mm mm thing has 
gone wrong this mm mm morning; so he couldn’t get 
away. Do you want to say anything more to him? He 
is swearing to beat the band!” Cogan heard the re¬ 
marks, and his comments made Jack shake with laugh¬ 
ter. 

“I’m s’prised at you, Tom Cogan; using such awful 
language over a public telephone!” Mrs. Cogan war¬ 
bled into the phone. “Have some thought for the 
poor innocent girl at the switchboard.” She winked 
at Jack while she listened to her husband’s grumbled 


88 


SOULS IN HELL 


excuses. 44 Well, be sure to get home as early as you 
can, love, so that we can have dinner early.” 

44 Goodbye for the present, old chappie,” Jack yelled 
over his sister’s shoulder. She hung up the receiver. 

44 He hasn’t changed any. He’s the same old Tom,” 
laughed Jack, picking up his grip. 

“The same old Tom,” repeated Mrs. Cogan happily; 
“and as good as they make ’em, Jack.” 

He looked quizzingly at his sister. “As happy as 
ever, Kitty?” 

“Happier than ever; if that is possible/’ she re¬ 
plied with a sigh of utter content. 


VII 


When the automobile containing Mrs. Cogan and her 
brother swung around the curve of the road, Mrs. 
Cogan pointed to her home a couple of hundred yards 
away. 

“That’s our shack, and . . catching sight of 
two figures near the roadside in front of the house— 
“and there’s my own dear little kiddlums waiting for 
us; bless his little heart.” She stood up and waved 
her hand excitedly. 

When they arrived at the gate leading to the house, 
Harold broke loose from the servant’s restraining hold, 
and clambered on to the running board; from which 
his uncle lifted him into the auto. 

“Weltum ’ome, Unkie Dak,” he lisped, throwing his 
arms around Jack’s neck and hugging him. 

“What do you know about that! He remembers 
you, all right! But don’t mumsie get any kissings?” 
she asked with a jealous pout. 

Gripping his uncle’s coat collar the child bent over 
and kissed his mother; then leaned back and surveyed 
Jack’s face happily while he caressed the tanned 
cheeks with his chubby hands. 

“I’m so glad you’ve come home, mum,” sighed the 

89 


90 


SOULS IN HELL 


servant when Mrs. Cogan reached the gate. “I’ve 
been busy all morning keeping him from being run 
over by automobiles. I’ve done no work at all—nothin’ 
to speak of, all the morning!” 

“Never mind, Maggie; never mind. We’ll soon 
straighten things out,” her mistress assured her gaily, 
turning to look at Jack with the child on his arm. 

This was too joyous a moment to spoil by worrying 
over such inconsequential things as housework. Home¬ 
comings did not happen every day—so why borrow 
trouble? Her heart was full of happiness as she heard 
the youngster telling his uncle of the troubles he had 
with his toys; which, with his child’s imagination, he 
had clothed in an air of reality; treating the inani¬ 
mate figures as real personages. She heard the de¬ 
lightful lisp—the lisp that tugged with such sweet 
pain at her heart-strings—as he told how “vevy, vevy 
naughty” the Teddy Bear had been; and how he had 
been obliged to put him in a corner in disgrace— 
“all by hithef”—with the little French soldier stand¬ 
ing guard over him; his uncle, who for the time being 
had entered the child’s world of make-believe, inter¬ 
jecting comments with an air of seriousness befitting 
the occasion. 

“That’s right, Harold boy! Make him obey orders 
like a good soldier. Teach him to do his duty!” nod¬ 
ded his uncle approvingly. 

Mrs. Cogan paused outside the door after Jack 
and the child had entered the house, and closed her 
eyes for a moment. A great wave of happiness flooded 


SOULS IN HELL 


91 


her whole being, and swept her up to a pinnacle of ex¬ 
altation. 

“Oh, Lord!” she cried, inwardly, “be merciful to 
me—a sinner, and grant my prayer. Preserve my 
happy home . . . for the Christ’s sake!” 

Her face all aglow with emotion, she entered the 
house. 




The trio had barely finished their luncheon when 
the trunks arrived from the steamship pier. They 
were taken into the large front room, for as Jack re¬ 
marked, “They only contain a lot of truck I thought 
you’d like to have, and a few knick-knacks for some of 
my old college pals.” 

Certainly Jack unstrapped and unlocked the trunks; 
but it was Harold who did most of the unpacking. 

The trunks were full of souvenirs of various sorts, 
which, when brought forth, were hailed with shrieks 
of joy from the irrepressible youngster. The crowning 
moment came when his uncle brought out a long 
cardboard box containing a large toy French soldier 
—almost as big as himself—dressed to the smallest 
detail in imitation of a French “poilu;” and when 
his uncle strapped a real steel helmet on his curly 
pate, the child was almost beside himself with joy. 
He strutted out of the room to show his treasures 
to the servant; his mother gazing after him with eyes 
moist with mother-love. 


SOULS IN HELL 


“Where did you get them, Jack?” she asked. 

“I bought the soldier from a poor chap in one 
of the hospitals. He had only one arm, and two 
stumps for legs. He was trying to support himself 
by making toys and selling them to visitors.” 

“Oh! the poor fellow!” 

“The helmet is one I’ve been wearing. They let 
me keep it, to show the folks over here. I wouldn’t 
be here now only for that old lid. You’ll find dents 
and cracks in it where shrapnel and a few other 
things hit it.” 

“But I thought they couldn’t hit you—in an aero¬ 
plane !” 

He turned to rummage in the trunk, so that she 
shouldn’t see him smile at her ignorance. He brought 
out some hand grenades from which the charges had 
been extracted. He held one for her to look at. 

“Here’s a pretty little article. How would you 
like to see this coming at you?” 

“What on earth is it?” 

“First, you pull out this pin, then grab hold of this,” 
—indicating the handle,—“swing it round your head 
a few times to get momentum, then . . . you let it go 
whizzing toward a trench where a lot of ‘Boches’ are 
lying snug and comfortable.” 

“Yes? And then what?” 

“If your aim is good, it lands in the place you in¬ 
tended it should. It explodes, busts into a lot of 
small pieces, and . . . .” He raised his eyebrows 
significantly. 


SOULS IN HELL 


93 


“And what, Jack?” 

“It blows some Fritzies to the hell that is waiting 
for them!” 

His sister stared at him with bulging eyes and 
horror in her face. 

“My God, Jack!” she gasped, a cold sweat breaking 
out on her skin. “Do they, the Germans, do they 
throw anything like that at you?” 

He grunted, amused at his sister’s ignorance. 
“Where have you been living, Kitty? Don’t you read 
the papers?” 

“Yes, but I refuse to read anything about this 
dreadful war. It is too awful!” 

“You say it is awful, but evidently you know pre¬ 
cious little about it; otherwise you would not ask 
me such a question.” 

“Well, tell me! Do they throw them?” 

“Do they! That is the least of their accomplish¬ 
ments. They do worse than that! They throw gas 
bombs full of poison gases which corrode the lungs 
like nitric acid eats through lead, so that when you 
breathe, your lungs and windpipe feel as if a lot of 
broken glass were tearing your live, tender flesh. They 
poison the wells; they inoculate their prisoners with 
disease germs; they knock out the brains of the 
wounded with their rifle-butts; they murder mothers 
and children; they rape little girls; they . . . .” 

“Stop! Stop! For God’s sake, stop! I didn’t 
know there were such cruel fiends in the world.” Her 
eyes brimmed with tears. 


94 


SOULS IN HELL 


“‘Fiends’ is correct!” he said, laconically. “You 
ought to read a little more, Kitty, if only to know 
what’s doing in this God-forsaken world.” 

“And to think that you have been exposing your 
life to all those dangers, while I have been living 
happily here in blissful ignorance, day after day. I 
feel quite guilty! I should imagine you would be 
afraid to go to sleep, not knowing what minute . . .” 
She was too horrified, thinking of the possibilities 
her imagination conjured up, to finish the sentence. 

Jack gave a quick shrug; a trick he had, uncon¬ 
sciously, picked up from his French confreres. 

“Hmph! I am a fatalist! What is to be, will 
be, I guess.” 

“But . . . supposing that . . . that one of those 
things hit you?” pointing to the grenade. “And 
. . . killed you?” 

“What of it? Supposing my body was put out 
of commission, what would it matter? I would have 
done my little ‘bit’ anyway, and that is the main 
thing. Duty and principle are of more consequence 
to me than this hulk of flesh.” He put the grenade 
on the table. 

Mrs. Cogan gazed at him in wonderment. Albeit 
she was a regular attendant at the Episcopal Church 
a few blocks away, and, theoretically, subscribed to 
the high ideal of the Christ teaching, she could not 
quite understand her brother’s point of view; it was 
beyond her. Physical life with its joys and happiness; 
her home, husband, and child; ,all were too dear and 
precious to her. “Duty” and “Principle” were all 


SOULS IN HELL 


95 


very well, but ... to willingly face danger—and 
such danger!—with the possibility of losing one’s life 
for, what were to her, abstractions; that was some¬ 
thing she did not care to contemplate. She would not 
allow any such considerations to enter into her scheme 
of things. 

“Your point of view may be all right,—that is, 
for you,” she answered; “but for me . . no! Life 
is far too sweet and lovely; too full of promise of 
future happiness for me to wish to give it up for 
any dreary, abstract notions. 

Her brother smiled scornfully. He had heard the 
same or similar sentiments from men whom he despised 
for their narrowness; and while he realized that his 
sister was of an intensely physical loving type, he 
was sorry to find that her horizon of life was so 
small. Fumbling in his grip, he sorrowfully reflected 
on the puny orbit the average person travelled in. 
Finding what he was seeking—a small leather case, 
he opened it and held it out for his sister to see 
what was inside;—his Croix de Guerre, the French 
medal for bravery on the field of battle. 

“Oh! Isn’t that beautiful!” she exclaimed in a 
low voice. 

“As metal it is worth, at most, a couple of dollars; 
but as a symbol of duty performed, principle upheld, 
foolish abstract notions as you call them, its value 
cannot be expressed in terms of money. It repre¬ 
sents the highest and noblest attributes of a nation!” 

She read the inscription on the reverse side. “My! 
You must feel immensely proud to have won it.” 


96 


SOULS IN HELL 


Her brother made a gesture of deprecation. “It 
was my luck to have the chance, and I happened 
to get away with it,”—meaning his exploit. “Any 
of the boys could have done the same thing, if they 
had had the opportunity. Lots of fellows, a damn 
sight braver and better than I’ll ever be, are sleeping 
their last sleep out there . . . without medals. Some 
without even a headstone to mark their grave.” 

Hearing Harold’s voice in the adjoining room, his 
mother called him to come and see his uncle’s medal. 
Jack took the Cross out of its case, pinned it on 
the child’s blouse, then placed his little chubby hand 
to his curly head in the attitude of the military salute. 
Drawing himself up to his full height, Jack saluted 
and boomed out in his mellow voice: “Vive la France /” 
The child smiled from beneath the steel helmet, as 
though he understood the import of the words, and 
made a lisping attempt to repeat the phrase. 

His mother threw herself on her knees impulsively, 
and gathering the child into her arms, pressed him 
convulsively to her heaving bosom. 

“Oh, Jack!” she wailed. “Please don’t put those 
ideas into his head! I know that many mothers have 
given their boys to their country, but I ... I 
couldn’t, couldn’t give up my boy for anything! No, 
not for all the medals in the world. It would break 
my heart!” 

She closed her eyes as if to shut out even the 
thought of such a possibility, and covered the child’s 
face and hair with hot kisses. 

“That is the mother instinct, I suppose,” retorted 


SOULS IN HELL 


97 


Jack, with some heat; “but if I had a son, I would 
prefer having him die for the sacred cause of liberty 
and principle, than see him live the life of a coward 
and shirker!” 

Mrs. Cogan gently unclasped the medal, and handed 
it to her brother. “I wouldn’t give my boy for fifty 
medals! I may be selfish, but my boy means too 
much to me. He means life itself! If he were taken 
away from me—which God forbid!—I’d be tempted 
to do away with myself; for I couldn’t live without 
him! Anyway”—blinking the tears out of her eyes 
—“you’d better put it back in its case before it 
gets scratched or damaged.” 

While aware that his sister was of a very passionate 
type, with a strong love of kindred and home, he 
had not, hitherto, known how much her child meant 
to her. Now, the blood surging through her temples, 
her eyes blazing with a look of combat, she seemed 
like a tigress at bay defending her young; and he 
realized that he had touched a part of her nature 
until now unknown to him. He dimly appreciated 
her assertion that the loss of her child would mean 
the loss of everything worth living for; and though 
he could not feel fully in sympathy with her at¬ 
titude, he felt sorry that the conversation had got 
to the point of distressing her. To break the tension, 
he suggested taking the child out for a stroll. 

“I want a whiff of air, anyway, and the walk will 
do us good. "What do vou say, kiddo? Will you 
come for a walk with Unkie?” 

The boy acquiesced joyfully, and ran out, at the 


98 


SOULS IN HELL 


suggestion of his mother, to the servant to have his 
face washed. 

“He needs some exercise,” said Mrs. Cogan; “and 
while you are out I’ll get these things straightened 
out a bit. Tom won’t be long now.” 

Her brother moved leisurely toward the door, where 
he paused; then went back to one of his trunks. He 
brought out a small packet wrapped in oil-cloth, and 
came to where his sister was arranging the souvenirs 
on the table. 

“This is something I brought specially for you, 
Kitty,” he said, slowly. “I thought that you would 
like to have it,” significantly. 

“You dear boy! What is it?” 

“All that remains of my mascot. It was always 
with me wherever I went—next to my heart; in danger 
and out of danger.” 

“Can I open it now? I am curious to know what 
it is, because it will mean such a lot to me.” 

“I hope so,” he replied gravely. 

He bent forward suddenly, and kissed her lips; 
then strode out of the room. Full of strange, vague 
tremors—how oddly he had acted—she slipped the 
string off and opened the packet; disclosing to her 
view the tattered remnants of a small silk American 
Flag, stained with blood. 

The oil-cloth covering dropped to the floor when 
she opened the folds of the emblem of her country. 
She noted the jagged rents; the holes—some cleanly 
cut as if by bullets, others with the edges discolored 


SOULS IN HELL 


99 


by burning; the blood-stains. Her eyes filled with 
tears. 

“His flag!” she whispered. “His blood!” 

She began folding it reverently when an impulse 
made her look toward a framed water-color picture 
of her child, Harold, hanging on the wall. Her bosom 
rose and fell with suppressed emotion. She sank 
into a chair and, bowing her head over her crossed 
arms on the table, sobbed out the words: 

“My boy! My boy!” 


VIII 


Benton, the actor,—of whom we have seen nothing 
since the incident of Waller’s refusal to shake hands 
with him on the liner,—owing to the fact that his 
name began with a “B,” had been one of the first 
to have his baggage examined and passed by the 
Customs Officers; consequently, he was on his way 
to his hotel long before Waller had made his tri¬ 
umphal exit down the pier. 

Immediately after his luncheon, Benton dressed 
himself in all his finery, and proceeded to that section 
of Broadway known as “The Rialto;” where actors 
and actresses who were “resting” (to use the tech¬ 
nical theatrical term—which in plain English means 
“unemployed”) promenaded the sidewalks, or lounged 
in groups on the corners diverting each other with 
their favorite pastime of blowing their own horns. 
“Throwing the bull”—as they say on Broadway. 

Talma, the great French actor, once remarked that 
acting was the most evanescent of the arts. The 
actor’s speech is no sooner uttered than it is gone, 
and has become only a memory. The actor, knowing 
this, on the stage does not employ the usual conver¬ 
sational tones of social life; his speech is what we 
100 


SOULS IN HELL 


101 


have come to know as, and label, “theatric,” and he 
enlarges the volume of his tones so that they can 
reach all his audience. 

The actor—and actress—out of a job, on Broad¬ 
way, carries this tonal amplification to an extent 
probably never dreamed of by Talma. 

When he meets some of his fellow thespians (who 
are full of the same consuming desire to unbosom 
themselves) he proceeds to acquaint them of the 
magnificent newspaper notices telling how he “stopped 
the show” in Denver, or made the audience in Chicago 
“sit up and take notice,” or the “repeated vociferous 
curtain calls”—“a round dozen of ’em, my boy!”—in 
’Frisco. Realizing that his tones must reach all his 
audience,—with the added realization that his hearers 
(in this instance) are exceedingly sophisticated, and 
will deduct at least fifty per cent from his statement, 
—he adds to his utterance an exuberance and wealth 
of decorative detail that would do credit to a motion 
picture advertising agent. If his estimate of himself 
as an actor were taken, even with a fifty per cent re¬ 
duction, the great outstanding fact of him being a 
greater actor than Irving, Booth or Kean ever thought 
of being, would be apparent to the dullest of intel¬ 
lects. 

As he leisurely strolled down Broadway, Benton 
glanced at the groups of actors and actresses as he 
passed, expecting to see an old friend or acquaint¬ 
ance who recognized him, so that he, too, could do 
his share of blowing his own horn; an avocation he 
was past-master of, and for which at the present 


102 


SOULS IN HELL 


time he was well primed. As he went by, the actors 
out of work turned and looked after him, full of cu¬ 
riosity. They recognized the unmistakable air of the 
professional actor, but not knowing him, wondered 
who he was. 

Five years is a long time to be absent from any 
place. More especially from Broadway, where the 
kaleidoscope of life changes over-night—almost; where 
theatrical reputations are a mushroom growth, here 
today in full bloom, tomorrow, withered and for¬ 
gotten; where the divorcee of last year gives place 
to the hero or heroine of this year’s scandal; where 
paint and powder hide the ravages of age and sin, 
and gorgeous dresses bought on credit hide breaking 
hearts; where the glittering, scintillating frivolities 
distract the attention from the pestiferous, soul-de¬ 
stroying rottenness underneath. Broadway! the 
greatest street in the greatest city of the greatest 
country on earth! Broadway! where one can find 
the oldest church and the newest vice; the highest 
building and the lowest degeneracy; the largest 
theatre and the worst performances; the noblest ac¬ 
tions and the most uncouth manners; the best ex¬ 
amples of the Caucasian race and the worst specimens 
of the Oriental; the highest and the lowest types of 
humanity. Broadway! The Great White Way of 
Bohemia! White with the corpses of its victims; 
both the quick and the dead! 

Even though Benton was well aware that his pro¬ 
gress was followed by curious and questioning glances, 
which somewhat soothed his amour propre , neverthe- 


SOULS IN HELL 


103 


less, he felt considerably put out to find that he was 
not recognized; he, the former matinee idol of all Amer¬ 
ica, not to say anything of London and Paris. All 
the big people must be out of town! Who were these 
dubs, anyway, that evidently did not know that he 
was the well known Karl Benton to whom the the¬ 
atrical world of the metropolis had given a great 
send-off in the shape of a swell banquet at the hotel 
Rector; and at which all the leading lights of the 
theatrical, literary, and artistic professions had been 
present? It was unbelievable that they did not rec¬ 
ognize him. His portraits were known well enough 
for everybody to remember him! His gorge began 
to rise at the thought of it, when the overweening 
vanity which was his main characteristic asserted it¬ 
self. He chuckled quietly to himself when the true 
inwardness of the situation revealed itself to him. 

“Why, of course! That is the reason. How 
stupid of me!” He simpered gleefully. “They know 
who I am, so they don’t wish to take the liberty of 
bowing to me. They naturally expect me to nod to 
them first.” He set his shoulders further back, and 
felt to see if the big diamond, that shone like the 
headlight on a locomotive, in his necktie was in place. 

Relieved and gratified at finding what he imagined 
was the solution of the matter, he was about to salute 
a group of actors when a short, fat man with a 
decided Hebraic cast of features came out of the 
Claridge Grill and crossed his path, almost stepping 
on his toes in his hurry. 

“Beg pardon . . .” the fat man wheezed, glancing 


104 


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at Benton. He stopped short in his apology and 
peered through his thick glasses. They recognized 
each other. 

“Hello, Karl!” wheezed the fat one as he pump- 
handled the actor’s hand. “Why, where in the world 
did you come from? I haven’t seen you in a dog’s 
age. Where have you been keeping yourself?” 

“Why, blest if it isn’t Solly Marks!” exclaimed 
Benton, in his most orotund tones. “I have just got 
in from the big village—London,” he added when he 
saw Marks’ look of inquiry. 

“Is that so! You’ve been away some time, ain’t 
you?” 

“All of five years. On a world’s tour,” replied the 
actor, raising his voice so that everybody within 
half a block could hear; “and a particularly successful 
tour. Do you know, in London and Paris we ... ” 

Marks knew the actors’ failing only too well, and 
not wishing to waste his valuable time listening to 
Benton’s recital of his triumphs, cut him short by 
asking: “And what’s on the cards now?” 

Benton frowned at the interruption. To be cut 
off just as he was getting into his stride! 

“Haven’t quite made up my mind yet,” was his 
curt response. “If I can find a good play to suit 
me, why . . .” He threw out his chest and smiled 
enigmatically. 

“Gee, Karl, it’s lucky I met you! I’ve got just 
the thing. With a part made for you. Fits you like 
the paper on the wall!” 


SOULS IN HELL 


105 


“Yaas? That’s what they all say!” drawled Ben¬ 
ton. 

“No, really, Karl; that’s straight.” 

“All right. Some time when I have nothing to do, 
I’ll step in and give it the once over.” He started to 
walk on. 

“Wait a minnit!” Marks grabbed his arm. “Wait 
a minnit, can’t you? I tell you I’ve got the very 
thing you want. We’ll go right over to my office” 
—he pointed across the street to the Putnam Building 
—“and I’ll show it to you.” 

The actor looked doubtful, but Marks with the 
business acumen of his race, linked his arm in Ben¬ 
ton’s and steered him across Times Square. 

Arrived in his office, Marks brought out his box 
of special cigars, a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. 
“To drink ‘good luck’ to your happy return,” he 
wheezed. 

The actor made himself comfortable in a large easy 
chair, and while he languidly pulled off his yellow 
colored gloves, Marks opened the safe to get the 
manuscript of the play. 

Handing it to Benton, he remarked, “This is a 
chance of a lifetime, Karl. It’s by a new man who 
don’t know the game.” The actor looked at him with 
a disgusted expression. “The business end of it, I 
mean,” grinned Marks. “He is so dead anxious to 
see his name on a programme, we can get it for a 
song.” 

“Hmf!” the actor grunted. “The songs you get 
for nix are generally not worth singing.” 


106 


SOULS IN HELL 


“But not in this case, believe me,” wheezed Marks 
hastily, mopping his forehead. “The stuff is there, 
really good; full of new business and clever lines. 
Best I’ve seen for a long time.” 

Benton having first helped himself to a liberal four 
fingers of whiskey, leisurely opened the manuscript, 
and read the title page. 

“ ‘The Folly of a Fool,—A Comedy ” he read out 
in rolling tones. “Hm! good title anyway. ( By 
Tom Cogan .’ Who the hell’s Tom Cogan? I never 
heard of him before.” 

“Now you just skim over it while I go and see 
what these slaves of mine are doin’,” advised Marks. 

He disappeared through the doorway, wheezing 
as he went, leaving the actor to his reading while 
he in the adjoining room, saw to it that his employes 
(his slaves, as he jocularly, but truthfully, called 
them) attended to their duties, and did not waste 
any more time than he could prevent. 

As Mr. Solomon Marks plays but a minor part in 
this drama, suffice it to say that his business consisted 
of selling stage and motion picture plays, providing 
acts for the vaudeville houses, also actors and act¬ 
resses for motion picture companies; in short, any¬ 
thing and everything along the lines of theatrical 
business by which he could turn an honest penny. 

He was fond of remarking: “A Jew can be as 
honest as the next man, can’t he? It’s only these 
damned shysters and such “schwein” which are crooks! 
And the rest of us Jews have to stand for the blame.” 
Then he would draw a few wheezy breaths (he had 


SOULS IN HELL 


107 


fatty degeneration of the heart) before he continued: 
“I’m out for the coin like the rest of the bunch, so 
I don’t pay more for the thing than I have to; but 
when I make a bargain I stick to it, even if I lose 
money on it.” Which, of course, was not often; he 
carefully saw to that end of the deal. But, as he 
claimed: he did stick to his bargain; and that is 
saying a lot—nowadays. More than can be said of 
some of the Jews’ detractors. 

When Marks thought Benton had had enough time 
to get interested in the manuscript, he returned quietly 
to the room where the actor was sitting, engrossed in 
the play; and whose experienced eye saw that here 
at last was the kind of play he had always hoped 
to find. While every part was good, with clever ideas, 
the principal part—the “lead”—which he would play 
—stood out unmistakably from the rest. It was a 
corker! Full of “fat,” sparkling with witty lines and 
surprisingly new situations, the whole comedy was the 
best he had read in many a long day. 

“Well? Didn’t I tell you I’d got the stuff for you?” 
Marks inquired gleefully, noting the pleased expres¬ 
sion on the actor’s face. 

“Hm ... I don’t know,” drawled Benton dubiously. 
He was too experienced a business man to let Marks 
think he liked it so much that he would be willing to 
pay any fancy price for it. He, too, believed in not 
paying any more for an article than was absolutely 
necessary; so, like other clever business men, he pro¬ 
ceeded to find faults in the article for sale. 

“D’you see . . . most of the situations are old stuff 


108 


SOULS IN HELL 


. . . revamped; and the lead is only so-so. A lot of it 
would have to be re-written, the scenes changed 
and . . .” 

“Ah, say, old man, cut out the flub-dub! Let’s 
get down to brass tacks,” wheezed Marks irritably; he 
had read the signs on the actor’s face too unerringly 
to be taken in by his objections. He, too, was a busi¬ 
ness man, and a very much better business man than 
Benton. It was waste of good time to try to fool him! 

“I read that a week ago to the missus,” he con¬ 
tinued. “She used to read for Frohman, so I guess 
she knows a thing or two about plays; been reading 
’em for about ten years. And say, she nearly laughed 
herself sick! She wanted me to borrow some money 
and put it on myself; but my hands are full enough 
as it is right now.” 

Benton calmly helped himself to some whiskey. “Say, 
Solly, you’re all right—can’t beat you! You can talk 
with the best of them. You certainly have imagination, 
if nothing else,” he said, with a sarcastic sneer. 

Marks prided himself on giving everybody a square 
deal—so he said, and the actor’s insinuation made him 
frown. 

“All right, Karl, if you think I am telling lies to 
you we won’t waste any more time chewin’ the rag.” 
He reached out for the manuscript; he was no mean 
actor himself. “I know a man that’ll jump at that 
play, and he’ll be in town in a day or so; indeed, I 
was keeping it for him.” 

“Who is he?” the actor inquired, keeping his grip 
on the manuscript. 

“De Fox Trotter!” 


SOULS IN HELL 


109 


“Ho, ho! That long-legged stiff?” he sneered. 
“Why, he couldn’t play that part in a thousand 
years!” 

“Oh, I don’t know!” drawled Marks. 

“Well, I do know!” replied Benton hotly. “Why, 
that part is full of good stuff that Trotter wouldn’t 
know how to handle. He hasn’t the delicacy of touch; 
the figure; the . . .” 

“Trotter has done some mighty clever work,” 
wheezed Marks, slyly. “You got to hand it to ’im.” 

“The hell he has!” snarled the actor, allowing his 
professional jealousy to run away with his discretion. 
“F’rinstance: what could he do with this clever bit 
where the lead is jollying the old dame? Huh! He’d 
make a rotten hash of it. And what kind of a mess 
would he make of this other peach of a situation, 
where the lead is making love to the . . .” 

He stopped, and bit his lip. Seeing Marks’ 
amused smile at his enthusiasm for the clever situa¬ 
tions in the comedy, he suddenly realized that he was 
contradicting his own previous objections. 

“Now look here, Karl,” said Marks, seating himself 
on the table, and pouring out a drink for the actor; 
“Trotter could get a whole lot out of that part, and 
he’d make a big hit in it—you know that as well as I 
can tell you; but I’ll admit that you are better fitted 
for it than him. If it had been written specially for 
you, it couldn’t be a better fit. I can hear that funny 
cackle of yours, with your one eye half closed, jollying 
the old skirt about the young feller; gad! it would 
bring down the house! And when the old duck is 
telling you his troubles with his young wife—the girl 


110 


SOULS IN HELL 


you are monkeying with; gee! they’d hear the yells 
of laughin’ down at the Battery!” 

Marks looked ingratiatingly at the actor. He knew 
his weakness to a dot. Benton swelled up under the 
praise which was the nectar of life to him, and lazily 
turned the pages as if undecided. 

“We ain’t kids no more,” Marks went on. “You 
know as well as I do that is as good a play as you’ve 
seen; and you’d make a smashin’ hit in it. Now say 
‘yes’ or ‘no,’ ’cause I’ve got an appointment with 
Archie Stormbanks.” He pulled out his gold watch 
significantly. 

“Hm. That’s another comedian,” mused the actor. 
“Perhaps he is after a comedy for the moving pic¬ 
tures.” 

Marks, seeing his hesitancy, held out his hand for 
the manuscript. 

The actor saw that he had come to the crucial 
point. “How much does he want for it?” 

“He don’t know himself; but if you offered to buy 
it outright, without royalties, I think he’d fall for it ” 
Marks grinned. 

The actor’s eyes glistened at the thought of getting 
the play without paying author’s royalties—which, 
of course, would go into his own pockets,—and he 
wondered what was the lowest figure he could safely 
offer without spoiling his chance of buying it. 

“Well, what d’you say?” 

“What do you think of five hundred for it?” Benton 
ventured. 

Marks thought of the slim commission on five hun¬ 
dred dollars, also of some notes falling due in a few 


SOULS IN HELL 


111 


days. He sighed heavily, and looked reproachfully 
at the actor. 

“You musta made a big wad on your tower. You 
oughter get a guardian so that you won’t spend it 
foolishly; you are so generous!” he sneered. 

“Well! What do you think would be a fair offer?” 
asked the actor sullenly. “You must remember that 
some of this stuff is amateurish, and I’ll have to whip 
it into shape.” 

“Offer him one thousand cash for all the rights,” 
Marks advised; “and you give me two hundred for 
my commish. You’ll make that in less than two 
weeks if it’s a go. Besides, you can sell it for a 
big chunk of money to the movie crowd when you get 
tired of it.” 

“You must have your pound of flesh, I ’spose,” 
said the actor with a curl of his thin lip. 

“Sure! Betcher life!” wheezed Marks. “I never 
did believe in that vegetarian diet gag; not for me! 
It might be O.K. for some people; but eatin’ grass 
never appealed to me as a steady diet. Roast duck 
with savoury stuffin’,—oyster stuffin’, and the usual 
trimmin’s, with a coupla glasses of champagne, and a 
good Havana to finish off; suits me much better.” He 
licked his lips, and his eyes glistened. 

“All right. It’s a go! But . . . don’t forget that’s 
on condition I can alter some of it to suit myself. 
Be sure and get that in the contract; otherwise, it’s 
ail off.” 

Marks seized the ’phone, and, making the connection, 
said in a caressing tone, “This you, Mr. Cogan?” 
Hearing the editor’s big voice replying in the affirma- 


112 


SOULS IN HELL 


tive, he continued, “Well, this is Marks talking . . . 
yeh, Solly Marks . . . Quite well, thank you. Well, 
now ... I don’t want to give you any false hopes, 
but ... I think that I may be able to place your 
comedy; that is, if you are reasonable about it.” 
Cogan wanted to know what he meant by ‘reasonable . 5 
“Well . . . you know how it is. People are afraid 
to take a chance on an unknown man ... a new 
author, and . . .” Cogan interrupted with the guess 
that all authors must have been, at some time or 
other, unknown. “Yes, yes, of course,” agreed Marks 
hastily; “but you know how it is in your own busi¬ 
ness. An unknown has to accept less than a man who 
has made a name.” 

The wily agent paused to allow his remark to sink 
into Cogan’s mind, and so prepare him for the pro¬ 
position he was about to make. 

“Well now, liss’n. If you’ll agree to sell the play 
outright, after making a few changes to suit the 
leadin’ man, I think ... I only think, mind you, 
perhaps I can get as much as one thousand dollars 
for it . . . cash! which would be doin’ pretty good 
for a beginner. Of course, if the play is a hit, your 
rep will be made, and . . . why ... all the managers 
in town will be chasin’ you for other plays; and . . . 
well . . . you know the rest. You can buy all the furs 
and cutglass for your wife you want to!” 

Cogan kicked at losing the royalties; for, as he 
pointed out to the wheezy agent at the other end of 
the wire, if the play was a hit, it was only fair that 
he should benefit from it. 

“I quite agree with you, Cogan,” wheezed Marks, 


SOULS IN HELL 


113 


“but that is the rule in the profession; because the 
producer is taking a big risk with an unknown man. 
He stands to lose every cent he puts in the production, 
while you have one thousand iron men in cash. 1 
know more about these things than you, so I advise 
you to take the offer. It may be months and months 
before I will get any manager interested enough to 
read it, and by that time some other guy may come 
along with the same ideas; and then where are you?” 

He listened to the editor’s answer with a smile, and 
nodded significantly to Benton who was near the phone, 
trying to catch the conversation. “All right, then. 
Suppose you run over here tomorrow afternoon, and 
meet the man I’m dickerin’ with . . Yes, four-thirty 
will suit me . . . Goodbye.” He hung up the re¬ 
ceiver. 

“It’s as good as sold, I guess,” he grinned, turning 
to the actor. “He’s a bit leary on the royalties 
question, but if you flash some real, honest-to-goodness 
money under his nose, he may forget all about ’em; 
he’s so anxious to get it produced.” 


IX. 


That evening, after the greetings were over, and 
Jack by dint of much coaxing had told of the incident 
that had gained him a medal and a wounded arm, 
Cogan surprised them with the good news of the pos¬ 
sibility of his selling his play, and of it being per¬ 
formed on Broadway. 

“So you see, Jack, old top,” he said with a jovial 
slam on his brother-in-law’s back, “you’ll not be the 
only one to be famous! We have read in the news¬ 
papers of your exploits and heroism; before you go 
back to France, you may see my name in the ‘poipers’ 
as the writer of a successful play.” 

“Bully for you! I sincerely hope we shall, old 
fellow; and if it is put on the boards before my time 
expires, I’ll see to it that all my old college pals 
will be there on the opening night. They’ll yell the 
roof off! We’ll have one of the old-time jamborees!” 

Mrs. Cogan was delighted with the news, and got 
up from her chair to throw her arms around her 
husband’s neck and kiss him. 

“If anyone deserves to win out, you certainly do! 
Lord knows,” she declared to Jack, “he has worked 
hard enough for it. Up until the small hours of the 
morning; night after night. No wonder he is ner- 
114 


SOULS IN HELL 


115 


vous and irritable; the dear old thing!” She seated 
herself on the arm of her husband’s chair, and pulled 
his head on to her shoulder. 

“Ho, ho! Isn’t it strange how we humans slave and 
wear ourselves out; and for what? Baubles! Bubbles!” 
Jack mused in a dreamy tone. 

“Hmph! Those baubles and bubbles are necessary 
to spur us on to do things. I have yet to find the 
man who is willing to work just for the pleasure it 
gives him,” laughed Cogan. “Blest if I’d slave as 
I do; but I have to. Necessity is a hard taskmaster.” 

“Sometimes,” said Jack, leaning back in his chair, 
and gazing at the smoke-rings above his head, “when 
I’d be sitting all by my lonesome at an outpost shel¬ 
tered from the cold, biting wind by a few rocks and 
some brushwood; wrapped in my big coat, trying to 
keep the heat in my body by breathing deep breaths 
rapidly; dead with fatigue, yet having to keep awake 
so as to watch that friend Fritz, who was probably 
doing the same stunt, didn’t get the jump on me, 
I often used to think how foolish and how childish 
our actions were.” 

Cogan and his wife looked curiously at him. 

“Here are you, Tom, looking forward to making a 
big splurge with your play; and what will it amount 
to after all? Some applause from your fellows, a few 
extra shekels, and in fifty years more or less Tom 
Cogan the successful dramatist will be forgotten!” 

“My word, but you are some little consoler, Jack!” 
laughed his sister. 

Cogan burst in with, “If nothing else comes of it, 
the shekels will come in mighty handy, believe muh!” 


116 


SOULS IN HELL 


“Perhaps so,” Jack replied. “Don’t imagine for 
a moment that I want to throw cold water on your 
enthusiasm,” he added hastily. 

“I am feeling pretty good tonight, old scout,” 
Cogan said, cheerfully, puffing contentedly at his 
cigar. “I can stand a lot of pessimism just now.” 

“No, no, old man; I don’t mean it that way at 
all; quite the reverse, I assure you.” 

“Very well; tres bien. Go ahead. Shoot!” Cogan 
laughed, and snuggled closer to his wife. 

“As I was saying: when I was squatting there, look¬ 
ing up at the great expanse of blue-black sky above 
me, studded with stars,—some of them suns bigger 
than our sun, and probably with planets, worlds like 
ours, swinging round in their orbits,—trying to realize 
that the Great Bear had been there when Moses led 
the children of Israel out of Egypt; that Orion and 
the Pleiades were shining above me just as they did 
when old boil-bedevilled Job recorded the fact; the 
great (and to me) significant fact was borne in on me 
that we are not merely little, miserable sinners, bugs 
crawling on the earth’s bosom, but that we are neces¬ 
sary cogs in the wheels of the great Cosmic Machine. 
That our actions, childish and trifling as in many ways 
they seem to be, are, in reality, important parts in 
the great World Drama, and vital to the whole Cosmic 
Scheme and Design.” 

Cogan glanced with a look of inquiry at his wife. 
She gave a slight tilt of her shoulders ; she had no 
idea what her brother was driving at. Jack struck 
a match to relight his cigar. 

“I am afraid I cannot follow you very far along 


SOULS IN HELL 


117 


those lines, old sport,” Cogan remarked. “I’ve been 
kept so busy with my nose to the grindstone, trying 
to keep the wolf from the door, that . . Jack looked 
up at the pause, “. . . I don’t know how to put it 
in so many words, but . . .well . . . one world is enough 
for me to think about at a time. I’ve all I can do 
to attend to the matters of this world, without bother¬ 
ing about the next. Time enough for that when I get 
there.” 

“But suppose that the kind of life we shall experi¬ 
ence in the next world wholly depended on our actions 
in this world; what then?” 

“Hey, Jack,” interposed his sister, “what is all this? 
Have you ‘got religion’—as they say down South?” 

“Oh, no. At least, not in the sense of having 
joined a church, or subscribing to any particular 
creed.” Then he awoke to the fact that Cogan and 
his wife were eyeing him curiously. “But perhaps 
I am boring you with this kind of chatter.” 

His sister laughed merrily. “You are not boring 
me, boysie; but it sounds so strange coming from you. 
You never struck me as being of a religious turn of 
mind. Indeed”—remembering his college career— 
“rather the reverse. A good bit of a harum-scarem 
kind of scamp, in fact.” 

Jack joined in the laugh at his expense. “Per¬ 
fectly true! I know what you are hinting at. I sup¬ 
pose being at the front has changed my point of view 
a bit. I’m sure my old Professor would be as much 
astonished at the change as you are.” 

“I guess you’ve seen things out there that would 


118 


SOULS IN HELL 


make some interesting reading,” Cogan suggested, 
trying to change the conversation. 

“Yes,” replied Jack, reminiscently. “It was some¬ 
thing I saw that gave me my new point of view. It 
has altered my whole attitude to life.” 

The editor brightened up. Though he had tried 
to hide it, he had been rather bored by the trend of 
his brother-in-law’s previous remarks; now, expecting 
to hear of some exciting accounts of whirlwind attacks, 
of hand-to-hand encounters—perhaps of Jack’s own 
personal conflicts, he bit off the end of a fresh cigar, 
and settled himself in his chair in eager anticipation. 

“Go ahead. Tell us, Jack; it ought to be very in¬ 
teresting.” 

“As you have probably read accounts of unwounded 
men being sent for a holiday to Paris and even to 
London—anywhere from the front—to give their 
nerves a rest, you may have dimly conceived what a 
tremendous strain the boys are undergoing. But how¬ 
ever vivid your imagination may be, it is not equal to 
picturing the real conditions. One’s nerves are strung 
taut almost to breaking point, not with the doing of 
things but with the waiting; the tense watchfulness; 
the expectation of what may happen next.” 

Cogan gave a nod of understanding. 

“One calm magnificent night! Not a breath of air 
moving. Hardly a sound except the low whispers of 
some of the men on duty, and the muffled sounds 
of the heavy breathing of those who were sleeping, 
dead tired, in the dugout. I was leaning against the 
side of the trench, doing sentry duty; my head be- 


SOULS IN HELL 


119 


tween two sandbags on the parapet—watching. The 
sector had been unaccountably quiet for the last two 
days, and past experiences led the command to 
suspect that the Hun was up to some new devilment 
or other; probably a raid. Every one of my senses 
keyed up to the limit, I was straining my eyes peer¬ 
ing through the thin mist rising from the damp waste 
of ground in front of me, every now and then al¬ 
most convinced that I could see forms moving toward 
our lines; only to discover that it was a deception 
due to the moving mist winding around the objects 
out there on No Man’s Land, and giving them the 
appearance of movement. Absorbed in the watching, 1 
lost all sense of time. I cannot say how long I was 
standing there, but ... all at once ... a peculiar, 
indefinable feeling came over me! I cannot explain it, 
but . . . the whole scene seemed strangely familiar to 
me; as if what I was doing was a repetition of the 
same thing done sometime before! As a matter of 
fact, this was the first time I was on guard, and 
my first experience in the trenches.” 

“Dickens speaks of a somewhat similar experience 
when he was leaning over the side of a bridge in 
Florence; or perhaps it was in Rome—I forget 
which,” Cogan remarked with a knowing air to his 
wife. 

“Literature is full of examples of similar accounts,” 
agreed Jack. “Well . . . the thought came into my 
mind: why should all these men in our, and the ene¬ 
my’s trenches be here? Speaking for myself, I had 
no hate in my heart for any particular Fritz who, 


120 


SOULS IN HELL 


in his trench, was fighting for what he thought was 
his duty to his Fatherland. Yet, here we were— 
he and I—trying to outguess each other, so that one 
of us could kill the other! If we hadn’t uniforms on, 
probably we would have shaken hands, thrown down 
our rifles, called it off, and gone back to our homes 
and more peaceful pursuits.” 

“Hmph! The Germans are fighting because they 
are a lot of thick-skulled fatheads, willing to be bossed 
by a megalomaniac of a degenerate Kaiser and a 
bunch of aristocratic Junkers who order them to 
fight; whether they want to or not,” interjected 
Cogan with a snort. “The Allies are fighting for 
freedom; democracy against autocracy! Making the 
world free for democracy!” 

“Yes ... I know all the arguments on both sides,” 
replied Jack, smiling, “and I am aware that all the 
right isn’t all on one side. There are two sides to 
every question, you know.” 

“There are not two sides to this question,” declared 
Cogan, his fighting blood up. “There is only one side, 
and that is: the Germans are an arrogant, conceited, 
pigheaded race of beer-swillers who think their Kultur 
is the best ever; which they want to inflict on the rest 
of the human race, to force it down our necks, wheth¬ 
er we want it or don’t want it!” 

“It has some good points, don’t you think? Things 
we would do well to imitate in our own country.” 

“Yes, it has . . . not!” exploded Cogan. “More 
especially the raping of young girls and children, mur¬ 
dering defenceless old men and women, inoculating 


SOULS IN HELL 


121 


their unfortunate prisoners with tuberculosis germs, 
crucifying Canadians, destroying cathedrals. Hell! 
What is the need of repeating the list of their devil¬ 
tries; you ought to know more about all that than 
I can tell you.” 

“There you go, starting an argument as usual,” 
protested Mrs. Cogan; “when I want to hear what 
Jack was going to tell us.” 

“Sorry I butted in, old girl,” apologized Cogan. 
“Go ahead with your yarn, old man. Damn it! I 
can’t help getting hot under the collar when I think 
of those Prussian devils!” 

Jack smiled indulgently; he knew what a firebrand 
his brother-in-law was. 

“As I was saying:—Thoughts along those lines 
were chasing through my head when . . . suddenly 
. . . the grey mist wasn’t there . . . but ... a large 
picture ... in color; just as if a colored moving 
picture had been suddenly thrown on the atmosphere. 
Indeed, I was so surprised, I turned to see if there 
was a moving picture outfit behind me. Of course, 
there wasn’t; but when I turned again, the picture 
was there in front of me!” 

“A picture? How strange!” his sister ejaculated. 

“I blinked my eyes, thinking it was some optical 
illusion due to the movement of the rising mist, and 
closed them for a second or so; but when I opened 
them again, there was this immense picture in front of 
me.” 

“What an extraordinary thing!” was Mrs. Cogan’s 


SOULS IN HELL 


122 

comment. “What could it have been? Have you any 
idea?” 

“Oh, some kind of hallucination, probably,” said Co- 
gan, “due to nervous tension and overstrained eyes.” 

“Can you remember what it looked like?” his sister 
asked, all excitement. “Can you describe it, Jack?” 

“Oh, yes. I shall never forget it!” He threw his 
cigar stump into the ash-tray; then, with eyes almost 
closed, leaned back in his chair. 

“I seemed to be at a height, looking down on a vast 
crowd of excited men and women standing in front of 
a large temple. At least, I got the impression it was 
a temple. It may have been some other kind of a 
public building, for it had enormous columns, and a 
number of broad steps leading up to the entrance. At 
the foot of the steps were large braziers of, I should 
say, bronze, out of which arose thick smoke. It may 
seem strange,—I must confess it did to me at the time, 
—but I could actually smell the smoke. It smelled 
like incense, and I suppose that was why I thought 
the place was a temple. I couldn’t see the upper part 
of the building—it seemed to fade into obscurity. The 
whole picture looked fuzzy at the edges . . . Sort of 
out of focus. The people, who were shouting and yell¬ 
ing like mad,—a regular Babel,—were dressed after 
the fashion of the ancient Greeks or Romans; but I 
somehow felt—I cannot explain how or why—that 
they were not of either of those nations. There was a 
sort of Oriental touch about them that you don’t find 
in either the Greeks or the Romans.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


123 


“Were they Egyptians, do you think?” his sister 
asked, looking wise. 

“You are way off, Kitty,” laughed her husband. 
“Egyptians did not dress like the Greeks or Romans. 
More likely to be Carthaginians.” 

“Strange to say, that was the impression I got,” 
Jack replied. “And right here, let me say that I don’t 
know how certain impressions came to me, nor do I 
know why they impressed me as being true; neverthe¬ 
less, I seemed to know positively that those impres¬ 
sions were veritable facts; facts beyond all argument 
and cavil.” 

“Some old forgotten pictures lying dormant in your 
sub-conscious memory, probably, which under the 
strain of your intense concentration, came to the sur¬ 
face of your normal consciousness,” suggested Cogan, 
who had a superficial acquaintance with the jargon of 
the “psychologists.” 

“I cannot say,” Jack replied. “I don’t remember 
having seen any such picture. Certainly not one that 
moved as this one did, with the sound of voices, and 
the smell of incense coming out of it.” 

“The sounds may have been the general result of 
the sounds around you, and the smell may have been 
due to something burning in the dugout or some such 
place,” insisted Cogan. 

“I hardly think so,” replied Jack, dreamily. 

“Don’t interrupt, Tom,” Mrs. Cogan advised in 
a low tone. Her husband smiled and patted her hand. 

“At the bottom of the temple steps was a large 
bronze table where men in armor were sitting; also 


124 


SOULS IN HELL 


some standing . . . Looked like officials in command. 
A number of youths about twelve to sixteen years 
old, stood in a line which extended from the table 
to somewhere in the distance; the other end lost in 
the crowd . . . The youths were being drafted into 
the army.” 

“The last draft, as it were,” chimed in the irre¬ 
pressible Cogan. 

His brother-inlaw nodded. “Yes. It was the call 
for the last reserves—the boys ... I seemed to 
knew one of them, intimately. When his name was 
taken, and he was given what appeared to be a bronze 
coin or tag, he rushed to a girl about his own age, 
who was sobbing as though her heart would break, at 
the outskirts of the crowd.” 

“His sweetheart, of course,” explained Mrs. Cogan, 
smiling. 

“The plot thickens!” her husband hissed drama¬ 
tically. “But don’t interrupt, Kitty.” 

Unheeding the interruption, Jack continued: “I 
somehow knew that, although dressed in a feminine 
costume, the figure was really a boy disguised as 
a girl; and that he was, by that method, evading the 
call to arms ... I seemed to know, too, that the 
elder youth was not only conniving at the deception, 
but that he was responsible for it . . . He loved his 
young brother so much, he did not want him to risk 
losing his life: hence the disguise to fool the author¬ 
ities.” 

“Oh! it was his brother. How very interesting!” 
Mrs. Cogan exclaimed. 


SOULS IN HELL 


125 


The husband stifled a yawn to remark: “Huh! 
There were slackers and shirkers in those days, too!” 

“The remarkable part of it was this:— While I 
was, apparently, looking at the scene,—as a spectator, 
—yet, at the same time, I knew and felt that I was 
the hoy in the girl's costume!” 

Cogan laughed goodhumoredly. “You must have 
fallen asleep and had a dream.” 

“No! I was wide awake. To assure myself that 
I was not asleep, I turned to look at the fellows 
moving about in the trench. Indeed, I actually pinched 
my leg to see if I was really awake.” 

“How absurd!” cried his sister laughing merrily. 

“Yes, it does sound absurd now,” conceded her 
brother ; “but at the time it was very real I assure 
you.” 

“Was that all?” inquired Cogan, who was feeling 
sleepy. 

“No. The scene seemed to dissolve suddenly into 
another one, and this time I wasn’t so much a 
spectator as an actor. I was in the picture itself; 
part and parcel of it ... I cannot explain it, but 
there was I, dressed in armor , in a sort of trench— 
or ditch, rather—with a long lance or spear in my 
hand, on guard, watching the enemy; while at my 
feet, on the ground, was my brother of the first 
vision—desperately wounded !” 

“How did you get there after being left at home, 
disguised as a girl, evading the draft?” his sister 
wanted to know. 

“I got the impression that I had felt ashamed of 
dodging my duty, and had been drafted into the 


126 


SOULS IN HELL 


regiment—or Legion, as it was called—to which my 
brother belonged . . . Somehow I knew, too, that 
I had been in great danger of losing my life, and 
that my brother had got his wounds while rescuing 
me from the enemy . . . He had sacrificed himself 
for me!” 

“ ‘Greater love hath no man than this,’ ” Mrs. 
Cogan quoted under her breath, “ ‘that a man lay 
down his life for his friends.’ ” 

Jack looked keenly at his sister, as though to read 
her thoughts. 

“And now! Now for the denouement! The climax! 
The triumph of duty, virtue, and courage over . . . 
mm . . . what shall I say?” Cogan yawned. 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Cogan in a dreamy voice. “What 
was the outcome?” 

“Somebody tapped me on my arm. It was the 
relief to take my place, so that I could have forty 
winks ... I nodded to him, then turned to take 
another look at the picture—for I wanted to see 
the end of it; but it was gone! . . . Nothing there but 
the faint light of the dawn coming over the plain; 
shimmering through the mist to herald the coming 
of another day.” 

“Gone?” his sister echoed. “Oh! . . . how dis¬ 
appointing !” 

Jack nodded slowly as he looked into her eyes 
with an inquiring look. “Yes . . . gone!” 

His sister returned his look with a faraway, dreamy 
expression on her face; as though the narrative had 
evoked some vague, long-forgotten memories. 


SOULS IN HELL 


127 

\ 

“I wonder if he died of his wounds, or . . . did he 
recover?” she murmured slowly. 

“I don’t know,” replied Jack . . . “I wish I did!” 

“Huh! It is very evident that you are not a 
writer of fiction, Jack,” Cogan cried, shaking himself 
awake; “for you work up to a climax, and instead 
of Ho be continued in our next,’ you leave the story 
‘unfinished.’ ” 

Jack smiled with a reminiscent air. “Can’t be 
helped, old chap. I’ve given it just as it happened. 
What the continuation is, if it has one, I cannot 
say; for I don’t know—worse luck!” 

He had told them that the boy disguised in girl’s 
clothing, and later—in the trench—in armor, in the 
two visions of what purported to be scenes of a past 
incarnation, was himself. He noted that they had 
not asked if he knew who the other boy—the elder 
brother—was. He was about to draw their attention 
to the matter (for he saw that his sister was lost 
in deep thought) when Cogan, now yawning in un¬ 
disguised fashion, remarked: 

“I guess I’ll go to bed! I have had a strenuous 
day, and feel tired out. I’ll bet you can do with a 
good night’s sleep, too, Jack.” He got up lazily, 
stretched his arms, and yawned audibly. 

The spell that Jack’s tale had woven around Mrs. 
Cogan, and in which she was sitting, dreamy-eyed, 
was broken by her husband’s action. She sighed, as 
though awakening from some pleasant dream. 

“I wonder what was the continuation; what the 
end of the story was,” she mused aloud. 


128 


SOULS IN HELL 


“The continuation, old girl, is: ‘Tomorrow’s 
another day,’ ” gaped Cogan. 

Getting up slowly, Mrs. Cogan glanced at her 
brother to see how her husband’s jocularity affected 
him. 

Jack smiled cheerfully. “Tom is quite right! To¬ 
morrow’s another day.” His thoughts still occupied 
with the scenes of his visions, he continued, dreamily, 
“Yes . . . tomorrow is another day . . . that is the 
continuation!” With which cryptic utterance Mrs. 
Cogan had to be content. 

Feeling rather disappointed that his sister did not 
inquire as to the identity of the elder brother, some¬ 
how—the reason not being clear—he couldn’t bring 
himself to ask her if she did not wish to know. The 
time came, a few weeks later, when he uttered a 
prayer of thankfulness for her not having asked 
the question. 


X. 


At the appointed hour the next afternoon, Cogan 
was in Marks’ office talking over the details of the 
sale and alterations of his play. Cogan having ar¬ 
rived ahead of Benton, Marks took the opportunity 
to point out the benefits which would accrue to the 
play—and the author—by having an actor of Ben¬ 
ton’s experience collaborate with him. 

“You know, Mr. Cogan, this feller I’ve got in- 
t’rested is a tip-top actor, and wot he don’t know 
about the stage ‘business’ ain’t worth knowin’. He 

knows the whole bag of tricks, believe me! Now I 

don’t care how clever an author is, there’s always 
somethin’ to learn, ain’t there? Specially from a man 
which has been an actor all his life. See wot I 

mean? I know you ain’t got a swelled head like 

most of these cheap skates of vodveel writers; you 
got common sense enough to see the help this feller 
can be to you. See wot I mean? You know I’m here 
to look after your int’rests, and see that you get all 
the traffic will stand—get all you can, you know; so 
if you are willin’ to have those few little changes 
made which will help to make your stuff go, why 
. . . I’d be willin’ to bet it’s as good as sold!” 

All of which sounded like so much celestial music to 

129 


130 


SOULS IN HELL 


Cogan’s ears. He knew only too well the discourag¬ 
ing, uphill fight of the budding playwright! He 
had tried to sell the play himself, only to find that 
although managers asserted—in newspaper interviews 
written by their own press agents—that they were 
hunting for new plays, and would welcome a new 
dramatist—more especially a native American—with 
open arms, glad of the opportunity of helping native 
talent, the bitter and unpalatable truth was quite the 
opposite; for they, apparently, unearthed all the 
objections they could find against his play. 

After listening to the depressing verdict—accom¬ 
panied by criticism—of one manager, he would try 
the next on his list of theatrical producers, wait 
what seemed an interminable time for a decision, then 
have his MS rejected (in a dilapidated condition, 
which meant expense re-typing it) with a new batch 
of objections. 

One manager said it dealt with a phase of life 
that had been in a play three years ago; consequently, 
he could not consider it. He was looking for some¬ 
thing new; something that had never been done! 
Another said it had too much talk and not enough 
action; yet another asserted that it did not have 
enough sparkling lines; a third thought it wasn’t 
seasonable. One obj ection was: the lead was a male 
part when—in the opinion of the objector—it should 
have been written for a woman; there would be more 
chance for the advertising man to get “write-ups” in 
the newspapers. “Anyway, nobody gives a damn for 
male characters nowadays!”—so the manager af¬ 
firmed. “This is the era of the pretty girl. If she has 


SOULS IN HELL 


131 


‘bedroom’ eyes and can swing her hips in a sug¬ 
gestive way—you know” (with a slimy wink) “people 
will fall all over themselves buying tickets to see her. 
The men will go to get a new sensation, and the wo¬ 
men to get new pointers. They’ll cough up all kinds 
of money to see her! She may have no more voice 
than a squirt, and know no more of acting than old 
Joe the chimpanzee in Bronx Park; so long as she’s 
got a good figure and doesn’t mind showing it, 
why . . 

Which was most depressing to an author with a 
clean mind and high artistic ideals. 

One opined that it might pass muster, if the first 
two acts were re-written by another dramatist (a 
friend of the speaker’s!); others thought the third act 
was the one which should be changed. The play 
called for too much expense in the mounting; the 
play did not give opportunity enough for pretty 
scenery;—so ran some of the opinions. And so on, 
and so on, ad infinitum and ad nauseam! 

One of the managers said Cogan was too late, as 
he himself—strangely enough—had written a play 
in which he used practically the same idea; and 
worked out—strange to say—along almost parallel 
lines! 

“If I wasn’t certain that nobody but myself had 
seen my manuscript, I would have sworn someone had 
told you all about it; yours is so much like mine.” 
So he said! 

Cogan was blissfully ignorant that that was this 
particular producer’s method of “writing” plays. He 
was a genius at picking out “situations” and clever 


132 


SOULS IN HELL 


lines from plays submitted to him, and rehashing the 
stolen lines and dialogue into the form of an “orig¬ 
inal” play. After a year’s tramping from one man¬ 
ager to another, Cogan was so discouraged that he 
began to think his faith in the play as a laugh-pro¬ 
ducer was misplaced, and felt inclined to either burn 
it as rubbish or throw it into a drawer and forget all 
his aspirations along the lines of dramatic writing. 
Feeling blue and despondent one day, he unbosomed 
himself on the subject to Tracy, the short-story 
writer, who, in turn, mentioned the matter to me; 
for he was aware that I had—as a change from 
painting posters—written and sold some scenarios for 
motion pictures. Tracy thought it was possible I 
might be able to help Cogan—if only to advise him. 

Having made some theatrical posters for Solly 
Marks, whom I had found very much more honest 
and straightforward in his business .dealings than the 
average run of theatrical people (which was not 
saying much, for most of them, given the chance, 
would not only steal their fellow-actor’s “business” 
or “acts,” but also the Throne of Grace itself if it 
wasn’t spiked down), I suggested to Tracy that Solly, 
knowing the inside of the game, would be better able 
to market the play than Cogan. Having had dealings 
with theatrical folk, I knew a trifle more of their 
characteristics than Cogan did; so I was only too 
glad to be of service to him. 

Theatrical people as individuals and in their pri¬ 
vate lives, are no worse than the average human; 
rather better, if anything. But, in their professional 
characteristics, they fall below the average ethical 


SOULS IN HELL 


138 


standard. On their better side, they are generous 
to a fault; big-hearted, noble men and women. The 
other—their professional—side is full of failings. 
Honor, truthfulness, and justice seem to be almost 
unknown to them! At one time they will be all 
generosity to their fellow-mummer, helping him to 
their utmost; the next minute, professionally, they 
will damn him with faint praise, if not something 
worse. They will help him to get a job; then, on 
the stage, steal his spotlight! A folk full of in¬ 
consistencies of admirable qualities; but also of petty, 
mean traits. A lot of splendid, genial, generous, 
lying, thieving, irresponsible contract-breaking scamps! 
I know whereof I speak. 

I did not need to be told what a small chance big- 
hearted, easily discouraged, volatile Cogan would stand 
with the theatrical crowd! A true son of that race 
which is a combination of hotheaded fighting ability, 
blarney and gullibility—the Irish, Cogan was lucky 
in not having his play stolen and produced under 
another name. (Strange that the people who are 
so expert with the “blarney” and “comether” should 
be so trusting and simple. But so it is). 

Cogan responded so enthusiastically to the alluring 
talk that Marks handed out to him, he was willing to 
make almost any concessions. Indeed, if Marks had 
sung his siren song in that wheezy lullaby of his 
for five minutes more, the editor in all probability 
would have made Benton a present of the play; he 
was so elated at the prospect of it being put into 
immediate rehearsal, with the further probability of 
a performance in the near future. He, like the true 


134 


SOULS IN HELL 


artist he was, thought more of seeing his brain-child 
presented to the public, than of the immediate mon¬ 
etary returns. 

When the actor arrived, and added his suave ac¬ 
cents to those of wheezy Marks, the matter of the 
sale of the play (without royalties!) was soon con¬ 
cluded. Then the changes and additions, mostly in 
the leading part, were proposed with such cogent ar¬ 
guments that Cogan readily fell in with Benton’s 
wishes. Cogan was so delighted with the praises of 
the comedy that he threw his arm around the actor’s 
shoulders, saying: 

“Say, brother; I am glad to meet you! You are 
like the Good Samaritan pouring oil on my wounded 
soul, and binding up the bruises where those damned 
managers have ‘biffed’ me! Whatever changes you 
want I’ll make them—gladly.” 

The actor’s face lighted up with a hypocritical 
smile. 

Then the question of where the collaboration could 
be done was discussed. 

“The quicker we get to work,” urged Benton, “and 
finish the script, the sooner we can put it in rehearsal. 
Can you manage to come and do the work in my 
hotel after your office hours? I have a fairly com¬ 
fortable room, and if we need a drink now and 
then . . .” 

Cogan, with his usual big-hearted generosity, had a 
much better suggestion to offer. “Since you are so 
anxious to get to work on it, why not be my guest 
at my house for the few evenings? The country air 
will do you good; I can promise you some good home 


SOULS IN HELL 


135 


cooking, and you can be one of the family. I am 
sure my wife will be glad to make your acquaintance. 
What do you say?” He pulled out his watch, waiting 
for the answer. 

The actor pretended to hesitate. Not because he 
was averse to the proposition, for it fitted in only too 
well with his views of life; he could amuse himself 
with the wife while the husband was occupied else¬ 
where. His hesitation was merely a bit of stage¬ 
craft. He knew the value of the “pause.” 

“If you say ‘yes , 5 55 said Cogan, his watch in his 
hand, “I will phone to the wife; then we can catch 
the train in comfortable time and without hurrying 
ourselves . 55 

After a few moments of frowning deliberation, the 
actor glanced down at his expensive suit of clothes, 
and with an apologetic wave of his jewelled fingers, 
said: “If you think I am fit to meet your good lady 
. . . er . . . dressed like this. . . , 55 

“Oh, I guess so , 55 laughed the editor. “She wel¬ 
comes me in this old hand-me-down suit, so your glad 
rags ought to pass muster . 55 

“Very well, I accept with pleasure , 55 purred Ben¬ 
ton, smiling. 

Cogan took up the phone at his elbow, and called 
the number of his house. Maggie the servant answered 
the call with the information that her mistress was up¬ 
stairs. “Shall I call her, sir ? 55 

“No, don’t bother her, Maggie , 55 replied Cogan. 
“Just tell her that I am bringing a friend to dine 
with us this evening . 55 


136 


SOULS IN HELL 


Earlier in the afternoon, Jack Waller had gone 
to the city to call on some of his intimates, promis¬ 
ing to be back if possible in time for dinner; which, 
however, was not to be delayed on his account. Mrs. 
Cogan and Harold had accompanied him to the rail¬ 
road station, and his sister had laughingly replied 
(when he asked her not to wait dinner for him), “In¬ 
deed I shall not, boysie. It will be the milk train 
you’ll come home on!” 

On the way to the station, they had met almost 
all the feminine part of the population of the little 
town (at least, that was Jack’s surmise) ; which gave 
his sister the opportunity and very great pleasure— 
to herself—of introducing her hero brother to them. 
After seeing the train pull out, she had the time of 
her life on the way home, telling those of her female 
friends whom Jack had not happened to meet; filling 
their souls with envy and regret for having missed 
him. 

Arriving home with Harold, both hot and dusty, 
she had changed her walking dress for one of a shim¬ 
mering, green fabric which Cogan liked because it 
fitted her voluptuous figure to perfection; its color 
making a splendid foil for her wavy, dark red hair 
with its golden lights and luminous copper-colored 
shadows. 

“That’s just like Tom Cogan,” she told her re¬ 
flection in the mirror; “phoning at the last minute! 
It’s lucky I told Maggie to cook a big dinner; so even 
if Jack does get back in time, the poor boy’ll have 
something to eat, anyhow . . . God bless him!” she 


SOULS IN HELL 


137 


added, remembering with delight the favorable im¬ 
pression he had made on her women friends. 

“I wonder if he is heart-whole,” she mused, as she 
went down the stairs to attend to her household duties. 

The subject of her thoughts was enjoying himself 
in the company of some of his old college chums who 
had forgathered in an uptown club to give him a 
rousing welcome, with an extra “rah! rah! rah” for 
good measure. About the same time, Cogan and 
Benton were journeying to the editor’s residence, 
pushed on by the hand of a relentless Fate to a denoue¬ 
ment they neither expected nor—if they had forseen 
the outcome—would have desired. 


XI. 


Mrs. Cogan was softly crooning an old Irish mel¬ 
ody as she arranged the flowers in the large epergne 
on the table. She had put a slender cut-glass flower- 
holder with a rose from the garden near her husband’s 
place—as she always did when anything special was 
afoot. 

“God bless his big heart! If he has good news, he 
will like to see the rose; and if it is bad news—which 
God forbid—why, the flower will cheer him up,” she 
reasoned in her Irish fashion. 

At the other end of the table, Harold was gravely 
imitating her actions—setting the table. He had ar¬ 
ranged his toys in the usual semi-circle in front of 
his place, and noticing the rose set for his father, 
demanded some flowers to put in front of his hero—* 
the toy French soldier. 

“Mumthee, me want thum fowthies for ‘poo-poo,’ ” 
he lisped. 

“You do, eh?” his mother replied. “And for ‘piou- 
piou’ no less. Well, mumsie’s darling shall have fow¬ 
thies. Yes indeed; I just guess yes!” 

She smiled happily as she took a couple of large 
daisies out of the epergne, and stuck them between 
the buttons of the toy “piou-piou.” At that mo- 
138 


SOULS IN HELL 


1S9 


ment she heard the front door open and close; then 
heard her husband’s hearty laugh. 

“Thanks be!” she exclaimed under her breath. “It’s 
good news!” 

She passed between the half-open doors into the 
parlor as her husband entered it. He threw his arms 
around her shoulders, and, as he kissed her, whispered: 
“Good news, Kitty!” 

“This is my wife, Mr. Benton,” he said to the 
actor standing inside the parlor door in the half- 
light—for Mrs. Cogan in her haste to greet her hus¬ 
band had forgotten to push the electric light but¬ 
ton. 

“I am very glad indeed to meet you” said Mrs. 
Cogan—she didn’t catch the name, extending her hand 
in welcome. 

The actor stepped into the glare of the light com¬ 
ing from the dining room. Mrs. Cogan hesitated 
doubtfully when she saw his face, then quickly with¬ 
drew her hand. 

“I guess we can have a little more light on the 
subject,” suggested Cogan, pushing the electric 
switch, and flooding the parlor with light. 

His wife and Benton were standing beneath the cen¬ 
tral cluster of electric bulbs; with the full glare light¬ 
ing up their faces. The smile of welcome froze on 
Mrs. Cogan’s face, and turned to a stony look of fear 
and repulsion as Benton suddenly recognized her. 

“I am indeed glad to meet you . . . again!” he 
purred with a mocking smile of gratification. 

For a moment, she closed her eyes . . . she felt 
deathly faint; then, by an effort of will power, she 


140 


SOULS IN HELL 


turned, and went out into the hall. Fortunately, 
Harold had rushed into the room and into his father’s 
arms, so Cogan did not notice anything unusual; he 
was too much occupied returning his boy’s caresses. 
The child was introduced to Benton who was amused 
at his prattle about his toys. 

“He has a great collection of toys, this boy has,” 
Cogan informed the actor. “Just look at that lay¬ 
out!” He pushed the doors open, and waved his hand 
toward the table. 

“Shouldn’t be lonely with all that lot,” was the 
actor’s comment. He glanced round the room, ‘Quite 
a cozy little nest for the dear girl’—he thought, 
meaning Mrs. Cogan, ‘suits me to a T!’ 

Mrs. Cogan standing out in the hall, feeling numb 
and sick with a nameless dread, wondered what she 
should do. That this man, of all men, should have 
come into her home; her little Paradise! What had 
she better do? His coming, sudden and unexpected, 
tore away the curtain of forgetfulness, and disclosed 
a hideous memory that brought back recollections 
which filled her with apprehension and dismay. What 
should she do? What could she do? “ ‘Good news, 
Kitty,’ ” she muttered bitterly, recalling her husband’s 
whisper. “The devil be thanked for such news!” 

The past, with its follies and heart-burnings had, 
for the last six or seven years, been but a hateful 
memory of happenings she had steadfastly striven to 
forget, and bury in oblivion. When she married 
Cogan, she believed that happiness was within her 
reach; she had only to take to have. Then, when her 
child came to fill her cup of happiness to the brim, 


SOULS IN HELL 


141 


she had blotted out the past so effectually that it 
seemed but a hazy dream. And now! Here was 
this viper, this devil in human shape, the cause of 
the only misery she had ever known, welcomed to her 
home, her Eden, and by her own unsuspecting hus¬ 
band ! 

As the blood surged through her temples, she felt 
an insane desire to laugh aloud at the grim humor 
of the situation. “ ‘Good news, Kitty’ ”—she hissed 
between her teeth; her eyes glinting with a reddish 
gleam. “What shall I do?” She felt like shrieking 
the words. “Go in and face him? Tell Tom every¬ 
thing, and have done with it? Finish it, and get it 
over, once and for all; or . . . brazen it out with 
the beast? Wait for him to give the cue and play 
my part accordingly ?” She mumbled the questions 
behind her clinched teeth. 

She stood . . . undecided. . . . 

She heard him interrogate her boy regarding his 
toys, and the sound of his crisply enunciated phrases 
cut into her vitals with a throbbing pain; filling her 
with loathing and hatred. 

Though she felt weak and unable to even think 
clearly, she knew that she could not stay out there 
all the evening; that was certain. “Then what shall 
I do?” she wailed inwardly. “What shall I do?” Her 
immediate problem was solved for her by the servant 
coming from the kitchen into the hall and saying: 

“Everything is ready, mum.” 

“All right, Maggie,” she replied in a voice which 
seemed to belong to some other person. 

The servant’s announcement roused her from her 


142 


SOULS IN HELL 


stupor, and made her understand the necessity of de¬ 
ciding on the course she would follow. Her eyes 
flashed as she straightened herself, goaded into ac¬ 
tion. 

“I may as well face the music, whatever the tune,” 
she muttered, with a grim set of her lips. 

She re-entered the parlor, and passed into the din¬ 
ing room. 

‘‘Dinner is ready, Tom,” she said calmly. Sho 
pointed to where the actor was to sit. “Your guest 
can take that chair.” Pausing in the doorway a 
moment, she said to Benton in a cold voice, “Excuse 
me,” then passed out and into the kitchen. 

Putting his young hopeful in his high chair, Co- 
gan waved his hand to Benton’s place. “Sit down 
there, brother, and make yourself ‘to hum;’ and”— 
he proceeded to seat himself—“if you don’t see what 
you want, let us know and we will try to get it for 
you. All we ask of our guests is: to accept the lit¬ 
tle we have to offer, and to make themselves thor¬ 
oughly at home. Quite as if they were in their own 
home.” He smiled genially, having finished what was 
the usual preliminary with a new visitor. 

The servant came in with the tureen of soup, which 
she placed in front of Cogan. 

“Careful, careful!” he exclaimed, making room for 
the dish, “Be careful of my rose, Maggie! It would 
mean a year’s ill luck, you know, to knock that over.” 
He was in high spirits and full of good humor. 

“I see there is one here, too,” remarked the actor. 
“Is it for me?” 

“Sure thing! That’s for you. My wife always 


SOULS IN HELL 


143 


welcomes our guests with roses. Hoses in her estima¬ 
tion are the most beautiful flowers on earth, so . . . 
well, you can draw your own inference.” He beamed 
with delight. 

“An exceedingly charming custom; and very sweet 
and lovely of her,” purred Benton. “Isn’t the lovely 
lady going to join us?” he asked, seeing Cogan com¬ 
mencing to eat. 

“My wife makes the best soup I ever tasted any¬ 
where; but she never eats it. Why, I could never 
understand; for she always takes soup when we dine 
out. And I guess we won’t see much of her at the 
table,”—he lowered his voice so that Maggie, going 
out of the room, should not hear the remark; “she 
likes to give her whole attention to the kitchen when 
we have visitors. You know how fussy the women 
are.” 

“That is too bad! I’d like to talk over old times 
with her.” 

Cogan turned an inquiring glance on the actor. 

“I had the pleasure of meeting her years ago— 
when she was studying dramatic art.” 

“Is that so ?” said Cogan, very much pleased. 
“Well, I’m glad to hear that! It will help to make 
you feel at home. That’s fine!” 

Mrs. Cogan was about to enter the dining room 
when she heard the actor’s remark. She reeled as 
though struck by a blow! Gasping with terror, she 
leaned against the wall with her hands pressed on 
her heaving bosom. 

“Mrs. Cogan—or Miss Carroll when I met her— 
was a very promising actress; or rather . . . uh . . . 


144 


SOULS IN HELL 


student, perhaps I should say. . . . Did she follow 
it up? Go into the profession?” 

“I don’t know. ... I don’t think so. . . . At 
least, I have never heard her say anything of having 
been on the stage,” replied Cogan, busy with his 
food. 

She heard the smooth accents of Benton asking 
the question, and her gorge arose within her. A 
grim, tense look came into her face. “Promising 
actress, was I?” she muttered under her breath. “You 
devil! Then I’ll show you some acting tonight, you 
snake!” 

Her whole body turned cold. If she had to fight 
for her home, husband and child, she would fight, and 
fight like a tigress! She wasn’t going to allow him 
to spoil her life without a struggle. Why should he 
come into her life now, after what had happened? 
She wouldn’t stand for it; that was all. And that 
was enough for her! She would fight him, fight him; 
fight him and his deviltry to the last ditch! . . . She 
would have to try to conceal her repugnance, other¬ 
wise her husband might notice there was something 
wrong; and while she dreaded meeting his eyes, and 
sitting at the same table with him, she was be¬ 
tween the devil and the deep sea. . . . God only 
knew what he would say! . . . How far he would 
go. ... So it was best that she were there to hear 
what he did say, and so know the worst, rather than 
remain in ignorance and torture. 

Bracing herself for the coming ordeal, her face 
set and pale, her heart beating wildly, she went into 
the dining room, and seated herself in her place 


SOULS IN HELL 


145 


at the table. Her appearance was hailed with delight 
by the actor. 

“Ha! Here is the sweet lady! I was afraid we 
were not to have the pleasure of your company,” he 
purred with an ingratiating smile. 

She paid no heed to the remark, and leaned over 
to attend to the boy. 

“Please allow me to compliment you on the din¬ 
ner. It is excellent! I have not tasted better any¬ 
where. . . . My friend Cogan”—he stressed the word 
‘friend’—“is to be congratulated on having such a 
wife; a true helpmeet. One who can look after not 
only the inner man, but also help him in his work.” 
He bowed gallantly. 

She wondered what was coming. 

“I was only a moment ago saying to your clever 
husband what a great help your dramatic talent must 
be to him in his play-writing.” 

“That so?” she said in an icy tone. “I think Mr. 
Cogan does not need any of the very slight knowl¬ 
edge I may have gained along that line. He has 
forgotten more than I ever learned. Anyway, so far 
as I am concerned, those days are past, and I have 
no desire to go back to them ; even in memory.” She 
stared defiantly at him, her eyes telling him as plainly 
as words: “You know what I mean!” 

The actor half closed his eyes, and, giving a quick 
side glance at Cogan, leered at her with an insolent 
smile. 

A rapid eater, Cogan was so occupied with his din¬ 
ner—which he was in a hurry to finish so as to get 
to work—he did not notice the by-play; but hearing 


146 


SOULS IN HELL 


the word “playwriting,” it reminded him of his own 
play, and the reason for Benton’s presence. 

“Oh yes, Kitty!” he exclaimed suddenly. “I for¬ 
got that I had not told you. Mr. Benton has bought 
my comedy— A Fool and His Folly , conditional on 
my making some changes, and in which I shall have 
the benefit of his experience. So, you see, we shall 
have the pleasure of his company for a few eve¬ 
nings.” 

Her heart sank at the news! She looked at her 
husband in amazement, then at the actor, who smiled 
sardonically as he gave a slight bow of affirmation. 

“Do you mean . . . here?” she faltered. 

“Sure!” replied the husband, full of his subject. 
“It’ll be very pleasant all round. You can talk about 
old times, and Jack can. . . He snapped his fingers 
in a gesture of disgust. “Tut! I’ve got the dickens 
of a memory! Maggie said that Jack had gone up 
to town.” He turned to the actor. “You’ll be glad 
to meet my brother-in-law. I completely forgot to 
tell you of him! You did not know we had a hero 
in the family, did you?” He whipped out the sen¬ 
tences regardless of their continuity. “Well, we have! 
A bloomin’ ’ero!” 

It was the actor’s turn to be surprised. ‘Hero,’ 
‘brother-in-law?’ ran quickly through his brain. He 
had a vague apprehension and suspicion . . . that 
... “A hero, did you say? . . . uh . . . Your 
brother-in-law?” he mumbled. 

Cogan nodded gaily. “Yep! He came in from 
France, yesterday, on the Republique. Jack Waller, 
my wife’s brother.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


147 


“Waller? Your wife’s brother?” repeated the actor, 
his face going pale, wondering if some kind of trap 
had been set for him. 

“Well, to be precise, my wife’s half-brother.” 

Benton wiped his dry lips with his napkin to hide 
any tell-tale emotion, while he absorbed the disturbing 
news, and recovered his poise. His half closed eyes 
blazed with a baneful light as he mentally conjectured 
the possibilities of another meeting with Jack. He 
wished for nothing better than to meet his assailant; 
but in his own good time, and on his own ground 
where he could have the whiphand; where everything 
had been arranged and schemed out for his own ad¬ 
vantage. But here, in this house, where everything 
was against him, was quite another matter. He cud¬ 
gelled his brain for an excuse to get out of the place 
as soon and as gracefully as possible, and without 
arousing Cogans suspicions. He fumbled nervously 
with his dessert spoon, biting his thin lips in his 
anger at Cogan for forgetting to tell him, and before 
he had accepted the invitation to dinner. 

“What time did Jack say he would be home, Kitty?” 
her husband asked. 

Benton waited breathlessly for the answer. 

“I don’t expect him until late this evening.” 

Benton gave a sigh of relief. ‘Oh, well, in that 
case, and as the evening is young,’ he thought, ‘I 
can stay for a half-hour or so, and then make my 
exit. . . . I’ll find some excuse by that time.’ 

Inwardly he cursed Cogan for a big, blundering 
fool, and vowed to make him sweat for getting him 
into such a hole; and, looking at Mrs. Cogan over 


148 


SOULS IN HELL 


the edge of his glass as he sipped his wine, he men¬ 
tally cursed her and the child she was speaking to 
in a fondling tone. The boy gazed at him with round 
eyes, feeling the hate that came from the visitor at 
the other end of the table. 

Suddenly, a light broke in on Benton! He drew 
a sharp breath, and closed his eyes. His face was 
set and impassive; but inwardly he shook with joyous 
laughter. Was there ever such luck! ‘And here 
was I going to throw my chance away!’ He could 
hardly keep from laughing out loud, as this new pos¬ 
sibility loomed up in his mind. ‘So Mister Jack 
Waller . . . hero ... is her brother,’ he thought. 
‘Two birds with one stone! The damned insolent 
pup, and his dearly beloved sister.’ He smiled grim¬ 
ly, thinking of the revenge that lay within his reach. 
Carelessly laying his open hand on the table, palm 
upward, he slowly closed his fingers until the points 
of his well-manicured nails sank into his fat flesh— 
to illustrate the thought running through his mind. 
He enjoyed the self-inflicted pain; for, as he assured 
himself, it gave him a little taste of the agonies he 
intended should be their portion. He had them in 
the hollow of his hand, and had only to close his 
fingers to crush them both. 

Talk of plays! Of comedies! This would be the 
most rollicking comedy he had ever played in; he 
would see to that! A tragic-comedy with the come¬ 
dian as hero; with all the “fat” of the piece, and a 
corking “tag” at the end. A masterpiece! 

“I shall indeed be most delighted to meet him!” 


SOULS IN HELL 


149 


Benton exclaimed enthusiastically; his eyes gleaming 
with an evil light. 

“You will like him, all right,” said Cogan decisive¬ 
ly; “he is a splendid fellow.” 

“I can quite believe it—if he is Mrs. Cogan’s 
brother.” He smiled unctuously at Mrs. Cogan. “You 
must be proud to have a brother who is a hero.” 

“I am proud of my brother. He is a man worth 
knowing and . . . imitating.” Her lip curled, and 
she looked at him with a significant stare. 

The actor bowed hypocritically, a sardonic smile 
playing on his thin lips. ‘He is a man , is he?’—his 
thoughts ran. ‘You shall see me make a monkey of 
him before I get through with him!’ He could barely 
restrain himself from spitting out the words at her. 

“Well, now, that’s done!” Cogan broke in, throw¬ 
ing his napkin on the table. “If you are ready to 
go to work, I am at your service.” He heaved a sigh 
of repletion. 

Benton bowed assent. “If the good lady of the house 
will kindly excuse us.” 

The men rose from the table, Cogan leading the 
way to his study,—his “den” as he called it. As 
Benton, slowly following his host, passed near Mrs. 
Cogan’s chair, he bowed and paused for an instant; 
long enough to say: “We never know what good for¬ 
tune the Fates have in store for us, do we?” He 
chuckled insolently. 

She winced at the words and drew away from him, 
shuddering with antipathy. He passed out of the 
room, adjusting his monocle as he went, leaving her 
staring blankly in front of her, endeavoring to fathom 


150 SOULS IN HELL 

the depths of misery she had to sound as a result of 
this man’s hateful presence in her home. 

All through the meal, the boy had been unaccount¬ 
ably quiet. Generally, he monopolized the attention 
of the visitors his father was so fond of bringing 
home; but this evening he had been unusually silent. 

There is an old saying to the effect that if a child 
or a dog is friendly to a man, that man cannot be, 
at bottom, very bad. It may be that Harold’s in¬ 
tuition informed him that Benton was in some way 
inimical to the happiness of his home, for he had 
quickly drawn himself into his shell, and contented 
himself with looking at the actor with wide-open eyes. 
Wise men tell us that very young children are clair¬ 
voyant ; that they are in touch with that spirit-land 
from which they have recently come into ours; that 
they—like the dog, cat, and other animals—see things 
belonging to the world over the border, and beyond 
our material senses. 

Harold’s round-eyed gaze followed Benton as he 
went out of the room. When the actor had gone, he 
turned to his mother and whispered: 

“Mumsie!” His mother looked absentmindedly at 
him. “Doth ’oo like dat man?” 

The child’s question awakened her to the stern 
reality of what Benton’s presence meant to her. She 
sprang from her chair, and clasped the boy to her 
bosom. 

“Me don’t like 5 im,” piped the child, in a voice 
muffled by the pressure of her embracing arms. 

Her lips set in a straight line, and a look of in¬ 
tense hatred came over her face. Maggie, the ser- 


SOULS IN HELL 


151 

1 fes . — 

yant, came in with a tray, prepared to clear the table. 
She hesitated when she saw Mrs. Cogan’s attitude and 
expression. She sensed the fact that something was 
amiss, and, with the intuition of her sex, felt that the 
visitor was in some way the cause. 

44 Shall I clear the things away, ma’am?” she asked. 

The question aroused her mistress out of her cog¬ 
itation ; and unclasping her arms from around her 
boy, she slid back on to her chair. 

“Yes,” she said wearily, “you can clear the table, 
Maggie;” then turned to help Harold off his chair 
in response to his demand, so that he could, as usual, 
help Maggie by carrying the knives, forks, spoons, 
and other small articles into the kitchen. 

In utter weariness of spirit, her face buried in her 
hand, she sat back in her chair and gave herself to 
the thoughts that raced through her mind. So ab¬ 
sorbed was she in bitter remembrances and reflections, 
she did not hear her brother come in, until he stood 
beside her and asked: 

“What’s the matter, sis; got a headache?” 

Looking up, startled at the sound of his voice, she 
discovered that tears were streaming down her cheeks. 

“Why, Kitty, old girl! What’s the trouble?” 

Harold hearing his uncle’s voice, rushed in and tried 
to climb into his arms. The interruption gave Mrs. 
Cogan an opportunity to wipe her eyes, and ask 
her brother if he had had his dinner. Receiving an 
answer in the affirmative, she said to Harold. 

“Dearie, go and tell Maggie that Uncle Jack has 
had his dinner,—there’s a good boy.” 

When the child had run off with the message, Jack 


152 


SOULS IN HELL 


with a look of concern inquired, “What is it, Kitty? 
Can I help you?” 

She gulped: “Tom has brought a visitor, a man 
I hate. And he expects to come here every evening 
for a couple of weeks.” 

Jack looked perplexed, then suggested, “Well why 
not tell Tom you don’t want the fellow here?” 

“Tom has sold his play to him on the condition that 
he makes some changes, which this . . . this fellow 
will help him to do.” 

Further conversation was stopped by the reappear¬ 
ance of Harold, who, having got his job in the kitchen 
finished, now wanted his uncle to play “soldiers” with 
him. 




Benton’s recipe for “success” was: “One thing at a 
time—and do it brown!” 

Now that he was in Tom Cogan’s den with the 
play in his hand, he dismissed everything else from 
his mind. There would be plenty of time to attend 
to Mrs. Cogan and her hero brother. He would at¬ 
tend to them when the time arrived; and pick the 
fruit when it was good and ripe! Everything came 
to him who waited, and—as he often jocularly re¬ 
marked—he was a good waiter. Now, the play was 
the thing! He wanted it whipped into proper shape 
as quickly as possible so that he could make some 
money—that was business. The other affair would 


SOULS IN HELL 


153 


be a matter of pleasure—very great pleasure, he 
smilingly assured himself. 

Cogan also was anxious to get to work; for he 
wanted his “brain-child” put in trim for public pres¬ 
entation. He heard his “good fortune”—which meant 
money and fame—knocking at his door, and he was 
eager to open wide the gates and let the elusive lady 
enter. He and the actor had started work on the open¬ 
ing scene in the play when the sound of Jack’s voice 
come from the dining room. He pricked up his ears, 
listening. 

“Excuse me a moment,” interrupting Benton’s 
reading. “I hear my brother-in-law’s voice. I want 
you to meet him.” He threw open the door of his 
study and called: “Jack! Ho, Jack! Here a minute, 
will you?” 

Mrs. Cogan, her head throbbing with a dull pain, 
heard her husband’s call. “Tom wants to introduce 
you, Jack.” 

Her brother frowned. “I don’t want to meet any¬ 
one you dislike.” 

“Yes, go, Jack; otherwise Tom’ll bring him in here 
—and I don’t want that,” she pleaded. 

“All right, old girl; I’ll go.” Telling Harold to 
wait until he returned, Jack went slowly toward the 
den. Cogan was at the door waiting for him. 

With his instinct for dramatic situations, the actor 
was sitting with his back to the door, pretending to 
be engrossed in the manuscript of the play. When 
he heard Jack enter, and heard Cogan’s voice boom 
out heartily, “This is my brother-in-law, Jack Wal¬ 
ler,” Benton stood up, and turned to face him. 


154 


SOULS IN HELL 


“I am very glad indeed to meet you again, Mr. 
Waller,” he said in a velvety tone; “and, I hope, 
under more propitious conditions for a better ac¬ 
quaintance.” 

During the few moments it had taken Waller to 
come from the dining room, he had wondered what 
type of man this was whom his sister hated, and to 
whom he was to be introduced. Even in his most 
extravagant flight of fancy, Benton would have been 
the last man he would have thought of; and now, here 
was the lump of corruption standing before him, a hyp¬ 
ocritical smile on his thin lips, offering him his un¬ 
clean paw—for the second time! The scene on ship¬ 
board—when he had refused to shake hands with this 
reprobate—flashed across his memory. He had been 
prepared to say a few commonplaces, and then excuse 
himself. Now his teeth came together so tightly, the 
muscles of his jaws stood out in hard lumps; the 
pupils of his eyes contracted into a stony glare of 
contempt; his nostrils quivered ominously. He had 
to call on all his reserve will-power to keep his fist 
from smashing the dissipated face and blotting out 
for ever the oily, hypocritical smile. The surprise was 
so sudden, and so unexpected, that it almost carried 
him off his feet. He gave a curt nod to Cogan, 
turned on his heel, and strode out of the room— 
raging with anger. 

Cogan stood, openmouthed, staring at the door Jack 
had closed behind him. Bewildered, he turned dully 
to the actor who was trying to look unconcerned. 

“Why . . . Benton . . .” he stammered, “whatever 
is the meaning of this?” 


SOULS IN HELL 


155 


“I am to blame. If I had dreamed that he was 
going to act this way, I would have told you of my 
haying met him.” 

“You know Jack? You . . . met him?” Cogan 
asked, astounded. 

“We . . uh . . came over on the same boat . . 
fellow passengers; and . . on the night . . before we 
landed ... I ... . had a little too much wine . . . 
and said something ... he resented. Of course 
... I was sorry and . . uh . . apologized the next 
morning, but . . .” He shrugged his shoulders. 

“Well! I am astonished that Jack takes it so much 
to heart as all that!” replied Cogan, frowning. 

“Naturally, I thought my offering to apologize 
like a gentleman . . .” the actor purred softly. 

“Oh! that’ll never do. Jack isn’t the sort of chap 
to bear emnity. He must be mistaken. Just wait—- 
I’ll fix it!” He walked quickly out of the study. 

Jack had re-entered the dining room, and his sister, 
catching sight of his stern face, now white with anger, 
was about to ask him what had happened when Cogan 
bounced in. 

“Jack! old fellow! I didn’t think you could hold 
such resentment!” he protested. 

“Sorry to disappoint you, Tom; but if you had 
heard what that man said the other night, you 
wouldn’t harbor him in your house for one minute. 
He is poisonous!” 

“Jack! old chap! I am surprised! You should 
be able to forgive things said under the influence of 
drink.” 


156 


SOULS IN HELL 


“There are some things I can’t and will not for¬ 
give.” 

“But, old fellow, a man isn’t altogether respon¬ 
sible when . . he’s drunk.” 

“That rotter wasn’t drunk enough not to know 
what he was doing and saying; but drunk enough 
to show his true nature.” 

“Oh, come along! Forget it this once, and ac¬ 
cept his apology—if only to please me.” 

“I would like to please you, Tom, but that is out 
of the question. I’d as soon put a bullet in his 
dirty hide as bandy words with him!” 

The actor, standing at the door of the den, listened 
to the colloquy between Cogan and Jack; his face dis¬ 
torted with passion and malevolence. “Ha! you would, 
would you, mister hero!” he hissed between his teeth. 
“Put a bullet in me, eh? The time will come when 
you’ll be glad to go on your knees to me, you pup! 
For your own sake, and for the sake of your loving 
sister.” His face darkened with intense hate as he 
tip-toed back to the desk in time to avoid being seen 
by Cogan, who returned feeling thoroughly disap¬ 
pointed at his failure with Jack. 

“I am awfully sorry . . .” he began, lamely. 

“What’s that?” inquired the actor, looking up from 
the manuscript- he pretended to be absorbed in. 

“My brother-in-law’s feelings appear to have been 
hurt, somehow, and ... I cannot get him to see 
it the way I do,” explained Cogan, regretfully. 

“Hmph!” grunted Benton. “I did my best to 
apologize for my remarks. A man of honor cannot 


SOULS IN HELL 


157 


do more; so . . with a gesture to indicate that he 
was helpless in the matter. 

“I am very sorry,” Cogan repeated. “I looked for¬ 
ward to you being one of the family circle, and 

99 

“I am sorry, too, but ... it is done, and . . he 
smiled suavely. “Suppose we get to work,” he sug¬ 
gested briskly. “ ‘Time and tide’ you know . . . .” 

Although Cogan tried his level best to devote his 
mind to the alterations suggested by the actor, his 
efforts to enter into the spirit of the comedy were not 
very successful. Benton seeing that he was in no 
humor to do creative work, offered to read the play 
aloud, and point out where, in his opinion, the 
changes and additions would be necessary; then Co¬ 
gan, when he felt like it, could write the lines and 
“business.” Cogan acquiesced in this arrangement, 
and, for the next hour or so, listened to the actor’s 
well-modulated voice speaking the witty lines of the 
comedy, while he jotted down the suggestions the actor 
interspersed here and there. 

“I think we have made a good start,” ventured Ben¬ 
ton when he had finished. “What do you think of 
my ideas? Do they meet with your approval?” 

“Yes, indeed!” responded Cogan. “I’m sure they 
will improve it very materially.” 

“Then you have no objections to them.” 

“No indeed. On the contrary, I feel that I am un¬ 
der a great obligation to you for the help. I didn’t 
think it could be improved so much. I am thankful 
to have the benefit of your practical stage experi¬ 
ence.” 


158 


SOULS IN HELL 


The actor swelled up under the praise. “Then I 
think we can work harmoniously together, and give 
the lie to that old gag of the author and actor not 
being able to agree. What do you think?” 

Cogan laughed at the sally. “ ‘Harmonious’ ex¬ 
presses it, brother!” A look of regret came into his 
face. “I am sorry though, awfully sorry that your 
first visit here should in a measure be spoiled by . . . 
uh . . .” 

“Please don’t mention it, Cogan!” the actor replied 
with a distressed expression. “I have had a very 
pleasant visit, indeed. As for the little . . . cloud, 
shall I call it? I am to blame for that. I should 
not have indulged to such an extent; but .... you 
know. . . . I’m not a saint—just a normal man, and 
I was so elated at the prospect of seeing God’s coun¬ 
try once again—after being away for five years, wan¬ 
dering in strange lands, that ... I drank too much, 
and said things I probably would not have said if I 
had been sober.” 

It has been already remarked that the Irish are 
the most easily bamboozled race on earth. When it 
comes to sizing up the duplicity of their fellow-hu¬ 
mans they are as green as the grass of their own 
Emerald Isle. And Cogan was no exception to th$ 
rule. 

“Put it there, brother!” he exclaimed, extending his 
hand in a hearty fashion; “I understand your feelings 
exactly! I am a big, rough kind of hoodlum when 
I get my Irish up, and say things for which I am 
sorry afterwards; and while I am not a drinking man 
to any extent, I have had enough experience with men 


SOULS IN HELL 


159 


to know that one in his cups will often say things 
he’d rather have left unsaid.” 

He threw his arm around the actor’s shoulder in 
that blustery, generous way of his, while Benton 
smiled with half closed eyes. 

“While you are putting your coat on, I’ll tell the 
missus you are going.” He went into the dining 
room where the only occupant was Jack—smoking 
and reading the evening newspaper. 

“Where is Kitty, Jack?” he asked, 

“Upstairs, I think, Tom; putting the kiddie to 
bed.” 

Cogan returned to Benton who was putting on his 
gloves. 

“The wife is putting the youngster to bed; but if 
you don’t mind waiting, why. . . .” 

“My dear fellow. I have upset your household 
arrangements quite enough for one evening; so please 
don’t disturb her. Perhaps I shall have the pleas¬ 
ure some other time.” He looked inquiringly at Co¬ 
gan. 

“Yes, certainly! Tomorrow evening.” 

Benton bowed, smiling with satisfaction. 

While Cogan accompanied the actor to the garden 
gate, his wife came downstairs and joined her brother 
in the dining room. 

“Tom was here a moment ago, looking for you,” 
Jack informed her, glancing up from his newspaper. 

“I expected he would; that was why I didn’t come 
down sooner. I didn’t want to meet that man again. 
He has just gone.” 

“How did you come to know that scamp, Kitty?” 


160 


SOULS IN HELL 


“I met him years ago, to my sorrow, when I was 
studying in a School of Acting. I’ll tell you all 
about it, sometime,” she added hurriedly, hearing her 
husband enter and close the front door. 

“He is an infernal scamp!” burst out Jack as Cogan 
entered the room. 

“Tom, have you signed any contract with that 
man?” asked his wife. 

“Certainly I have, my dear. Why do you ask? 

“Only that I wish you hadn’t!” 

“That’s it! That’s just like the women!” retorted 
Cogan, the blood mounting to his face. “Here, after 
trying to sell my play for over a year, I get a chance 
to have it produced; and now, because of what Jack 
has said, you take a sudden dislike to the man, and 
throw obstacles in my way.” 

“You know quite well I don’t want to throw ob¬ 
stacles in your way, Tom; so don’t say any such 
thing,”, replied his wife. “The good Lord knows 
I want you to succeed!” 

“Then why the devil do you act this way? That’s 
the curse of being married! A professional man should 
never get married. He should remain single, then he 
wouldn’t have a fool woman’s vagaries to contend with; 
for everything he tries to build up, she with her fatu¬ 
ous idiosyncracies pulls down.” He was working him¬ 
self into a passion. 

His wife knew from experience that argument with 
Tom Cogan when he was in that mood was waste of 
energy and time, for it made him only more stub¬ 
born; she therefore fell back on the woman’s natural, 
and most potent, weapon—tears. 


SOULS IN HELL 


161 


“All right, Tom,” she sobbed; “if he means more 
to you than your wife, go ahead!” 

“Now what’s the use of talking like that, Kitty? 
The man is kind enough to help me with my play, 
giving me the benefit of his practical experience to 
make its success more sure. I think you ought to feel 
glad, not to say grateful. Anyway, it is only for a few 
evenings.” 

“Well for those few evenings, you shall entertain 
him yourself; I’ll have my dinner somewhere else,” 
she retorted angrily. 

“If that is all you are raising the rumpus about, 
he need not come here to dinner; and you need not 
meet him if you don’t want to.” 

“That arrangement suits me,” was her answer. 
“You can take him to your study, and then show him 
the door when you get through!” She flounced out 
of the room, and went upstairs. 

Her husband sighed heavily as he threw himself 
into an easy chair, and bit the end off his cigar. “By 
gad! the women beat the Dutch!” He lit the cigar. 
“And blest if I can understand your attitude, Jack!” 
His brother-in-law took no notice of the remark. “A 
chap like you,”—puffing out large clouds of smoke, 
“that has seen so much of the world, and so much of 
men, to feel so badly over a few words said in. . . .” 

“Do you refer to your visitor, Tom?” Jack inter¬ 
rupted. 

“Yes . . . Benton!” 

“Then I positively refuse to discuss him,” replied 
Jack, with an air of finality. “Besides, I am going 
to bed; so, good night, old fellow.” 


162 


SOULS IN HELL 



Cogan’s desire for conflict—even though it be only 
a wordy one—was frustrated by Jack’s departure; so 
he had to content himself with puffing vigorously at 
his cigar. 

The unlooked-for events of the evening had upset 
him; and though he admired his brother-in-law very 
much, yet he felt that he had not met the situation 
in a proper spirit. Being a poor reader of character, 
and thinking that everyone he met was as generous and 
big-hearted as himself, he was only too ready to take 
a new acquaintance at the man’s own valuation; to 
accept him for what he advertised himself to be. He 
had been so favorably impressed by the actor’s soft, 
bland suavity, he could not for a moment believe him 
to be as bad as Jack’s remarks hinted. 

‘He is poisonous!’ and ‘I’d as soon put a bullet 
in his dirty hide’ was what Jack had said. Which 
was, to say the least, very extravagant language; 
and Benton certainly did not deserve anything like 
that! He had, so far, in Cogan’s presence, acted 
like a polished gentleman. How delicately he had 
tried to save Cogan any humiliation when Jack spurned 
his hand and turned on his heel to leave the room. 
Many men would have felt grossly insulted—*and 
properly, too; and perhaps would have refused to 
do their share of the collaboration in the house where 
he had been treated so contemptuously. But no, Ben¬ 
ton showed that he could rise above such personal 
insults; and, by Jove, it takes a very big man to do 
that! 

No, there was no doubt in Cogan’s mind but that 


SOULS IN HELL 


163 


Benton certainly had the better of the encounter; 
he certainly shone by comparison with Jack. 

And then, the outspoken manly way in which he 
admitted his fault, and explained why he had imbibed 
more than he should have. “He was glad to see God’s 
own country, again!” So would any man be glad 
after tramping all over the world for five long years; 
and he would have a darned good excuse for drinking 
an extra glass or two of wine. There was no fault 
to be found with Benton on that score,—thought 
Cogan. And the stories he had told . . . well . . . 
what about it? What did they amount to after all? 
When a bunch of men who had nothing particular to 
do or think about got together, why . . . they usu¬ 
ally started telling yams, some of which might be 
comparatively innocent, but usually . . . the bulk of 
them were such that they would be somewhat out of 
place in a Sunday School, or in a Mothers’ Meeting; 
although, by the same token, he had heard women— 
who had had a couple of glasses of wine too many—re¬ 
tail stories, and ask riddles which he, a man, would think 
twice before repeating! 

Jack knew that quite as well as he did. And he, 
himself, in his college days—not so very long ago— 
had told a few hair-raisers that were not fit to print! 
He, too, had travelled around with a lot of society 
dames who were not above telling yams that were 
a triflle off color; so why should he be so excessively 
thin-skinned as to take offience at Benton’s yarns 
when there were no women present? Why should he 
set himself up as a Censor of Morals? A smoking- 
room on board ship wasn’t a prayer meeting! If any- 


164 


SOULS IN HELL 


one wanted to hear racy stories why . . . the smok¬ 
ing-room was the most likely place to find the tellers 
of such stories. Was Jack himself so good that he 
could afford to be censorious of other people’s con¬ 
duct? What had come over him, anyhow? He did 
not seem like the old devil-may-care Jack of his col¬ 
lege days—up to all sorts of crazy pranks and devil¬ 
ment; known all along Broadway as one of the wild¬ 
est young scamps unhung; and who had gone off with 
a laugh and a jest to join the other young dare¬ 
devils of American adventurous spirits in the Foreign 
Legion in France. 

“By jiminy, he certainly is changed!” he muttered, 
puffing his cigar. “What on earth has come over 
him, I wonder.” 

The events of the evening before, when Jack had 
told them of the visions he had seen, they, too, re¬ 
curred to Cogan; and he remembered what a peculiar 
change of expression had come into Jack’s face when 
he spoke of those experiences. As if they were heaven¬ 
sent visions! The crazy kid! Of course, such things 
were only to be expected when a man had a long, 
nerve-racking vigil to keep; and he had admitted they 
had occurred on his first night in the trenches. It 
was not to be wondered at that he should think he 
saw all sorts of things. “If I shut my eyes, I can 
see lots of things,” mused Cogan, closing his eyes to 
give point to the remark. “Any fool can! I can see 
my desk all cluttered up; old Ted with his owl-like 
serious expression on his homely mug, as though he 
were a second Atlas with the world on his shoulders; 
I can see Brooklyn Bridge, the ferry boats, the . . . 


SOULS IN HELL 


165 


oh, what’s the use?” He laughed quietly to himself 
at the absurdity of the whole proceeding. 

Laying his cigar-butt on the ash-tray, he shook 
his head doubtfully; trying to discover the reason for 
the difference between the old debonnair Jack and this 
new Jack. He gave up the problem as being beyond 
his powers of solution, but came to the conclusion that 
he was “peculiar, very peculiar,” due probably—was 
his generous thought— to his nerve-racking experi¬ 
ences in the Aviation Corps. 


XII. 


In the Cogan house, that night, were two sleepless 
persons—Cogan and his wife. 

They occupied separate, adjoining bedrooms. In 
Mrs. Cogan’s, alongside her bed, was the crib in which 
Harold slept; for when Jack arrived, the boy had to 
give up his room to accommodate his uncle. 

At the window gazing with unseeing eyes at the 
starry, moonlit night, Mrs. Cogan sat in her dress¬ 
ing gown, despondent, her mind filled with dismay 
because of this dark cloud coming between her and 
her happiness; a cloud which, every moment, grew 
larger and more portentous; looming up like a hide¬ 
ous spectre of the forgotten past, and throwing its 
dread shadow upon her home and all that was nearest 
and dearest to her. 

She had been so happy in her married life, she 
often said that she was afraid it was too good to 
last. The honeymoon had been a period of unalloyed 
happiness; then her child was born. She watched 
him grow into the chubby, flaxen-haired boy, full of 
naive boyish ways, yet with a strange feminine streak 
of lovable demonstrativeness in his method of express¬ 
ing his love for her; fond of taking her unawares, 
sometimes by tapping the window pane outside to at- 
166 


SOULS IN HELL 


167 


tract her attention and to tell her, “I love ’oo so 
much, mumsie!” accompanied by a winsome dimpled 
smile. At other times by creeping quietly behind 
her, and winding his little arms around her, to whis¬ 
per in her ear the same momentous information—as 
though his love was a profound secret between them¬ 
selves, which no other could share or understand; a 
deep mystery known only to them. And always with 
that strange other-world light beaming in his face; 
which would bring tears of exquisite joy into her 
eyes as she clasped him hungrily to her bosom, and 
told him in a voice palpitant with emotion that he 
wasn’t merely a boy, but a veritable gift of God—an 
angel with an aureole of gold (his flaxen hair) who 
had come with all the love of the “other” children 
she desired, but . . . couldn’t have. This one had 
come with all the love of the “others” embodied in 
his little self, and which they gave her through his 
caresses. So she told herself; while he, the child, 
looked at her with that other-world smile lighting up 
his face, as if he read her thought and seemed glad 
she understood. 

She delighted to imagine that she saw the various 
personalities of the “other” children—which were de¬ 
nied her—in the varying moods of this one; and in 
the exuberance of her fancy (a secret she shared with 
no one), she had given names—boys’ and girls’ names 
—to fit the moods, and to indicate the different per¬ 
sonalities, of her “mind-children” which were mirrored 
in this boy’s constant changes of temperament. 

She so overflowed with passionate mother-love, she 
took this method of “make-believe” to find relief from 


168 


SOULS IN HELL 


the throbbing pain in her breasts which were designed 
for the mothering of numerous children. And now, 
here was this shadow like a menace coming in upon 
her and her child—her angel—her “other” children! 
What was the end to be? That was the question 
that appalled her; that gripped her heart-strings, 
drawing all the life-force out of her veins; that chilled 
her with a sickening anxiety; a question to which she 
could find no conclusive answer. The path ahead, 
full of forebodings, was dark and unfathomable; she 
could not even guess what the future held for her! 
The shadows were impenetrable, and she was as one 
alone in a wilderness. 

This scheming devil—this Benton would, she felt 
convinced, stop at nothing! She knew him too well 
to think otherwise. Having wormed his way into her 
little Eden, he would go the limit. And he knew how , 

and where to strike! And then- whatf 

Her thoughts went over the same wearisome 
ground, in the hope that some ray of light would 
enter her soul to guide her and point the way out 
of the slough of despondency. With endless repeti¬ 
tions she went over the same considerations, the same 
arguments, the same hopeless yearnings; only to find 
herself travelling in a circle, and returning to where 
6he had started from. Then, overwhelmed with fear, 
her tears would begin anew. 

Absorbed in her problem, she was but dimly con¬ 
scious that two prowling cats—meeting near the fence 
—were making night hideous with their caterwaul¬ 
ing. 

In the adjoining bedroom, his excited wakeful 



SOULS IN HELL 


169 


brain working overtime, Cogan was tossing and twist* 
ing in a vain endeavor to get asleep. He tolerated the 
abominable noise as long as he could, hoping the ani¬ 
mals would quit and leave him in peace; but sudden¬ 
ly, the night was rent by a blood-curdling yell that 
smote his overstrained nerves like a shock of ice- 
water, leaving him in a cold sweat. The tension of 
his high-strung nervous system broke; and, sickly 
faint, a pain like a sheet of flame scorching his brain, 
he threw off the bedclothes and staggered to his feet. 

Turning on the electric light, and cursing all the 
cats in creation, he glanced around for something to 
throw at the offenders. Seizing the nearest and hand¬ 
iest thing—a heavy glass water-carafe on the table 
near the bed, he pushed open the window still wider, 
and hurled the carafe in the direction of the dis¬ 
turbers. It crashed with a loud bang against the 
fence, and scattered into small pieces. The cats de¬ 
ferred their vocal exhibition until some other and 
more propitious time. 

The crash of the glass outside startled Mrs. Cogan 
nearly out of her wits! Hearing her husband’s win¬ 
dow being closed, she rushed to the door between the 
two bedrooms, and opening it exclaimed: 

“Oh, Tom! What is the matter ?” 

It was fortunate for her that her husband had 
turned off the light, and could see her but dimly; 
otherwise, her tear-stained face might have given him 
cause to ask some questions on her own account; 
which, probably, she would have found some difficulty 
in answering. He merely yawned, and growled on his 
way back to his bed: 


170 


SOULS IN HELL 


“Those confounded cats kept me awake with their 
infernal racket; so I threw the water-bottle at them. 
I’ll be in the madhouse if I have much more of it— 
blast them!” 

She closed the door behind her, softly, and leaned 
against the wall; pressing her bosom with her hand 
—trying to still her jumping heart. 


XIII. 


During the next two weeks, things went on much 
the same as usual. Benton came from New York 

on the same train every evening, making his appear¬ 
ance at the Cogans’ house at about the same hour; 
and as the sliding doors between the dining room 

and parlor were closed when he arrived, he passed 
into the den with Cogan without seeing or coming 
in contact with the other members of the family. A 
couple of times Cogan was detained in his office, and 
on those occasions he dined in town, then caught the 
same train that brought Benton. The actor always 
caught the 11.15 to the city, so, taken altogether, 

the arrangement did not interfere very much with 

Mrs. Cogan’s affairs, except that she had to enter¬ 
tain some of her visitors in the dining room instead 
of in the parlor. 

Fortunately, her brother’s advent in the colony 
was a god-send in many ways. He was invited to 
more luncheons and dinner than he could have eaten 
in six months; and naturally, being in a sense his 
sponsor, Mrs. Cogan (who always took Harold with 
her) was included in the invitations. 

If Jack had been matrimonially inclined, he would 
have had little difficulty in finding more than one girl 
171 


m 


SOULS IN HELL 


willing to say ‘yes’ and to cast her lot in with his; 
for, to put it mildly, he was the most sought-after 
man of a marriageable age in all the town. As he 
disliked blowing his own trumpet and advertising his 
virtues, his sister saw to it that he did not suffer 
from his excess of modesty and lack of “push.” It 
was due to her loving zeal that the colony learned 
that Jack had, on many occasions, helped to carry 
the colors of his Alma Mater to victory when play¬ 
ing on the gridiron against rival college teams; and 
that he had been tennis champion of his college for the 
three years prior to going to France. 

A bit rusty at tennis now, owing—as he laughing¬ 
ly remarked—to the lack of facilities at the front 
for playing his favorite game, his hand and wrist soon 
regained their cunning, playing as he did every day 
on the courts of the Country Club. Sometimes a 
college chum or two came down from the city to 
take part in the tournaments the women members 
of the Club now, more than before, organized with 
a view to learning the fine points of the game; and 
as his arm no longer needed the splints and band¬ 
age, Jack was having the time of his life. He was 
making the most of it, too, for his vacation would 
soon be at an end and in a couple of weeks he would 
have to return to his duties “somewhere in France.” 

As day after day went by, without there being 
any sign of the disclosures she was afraid Benton 
would make to her husband, Mrs. Cogan’s fear grad¬ 
ually subsided, and soon she was living, her life as 
though the actor did not exist. 

She was essentially an extremist. A true Irish- 


SOULS IN HELL 


173 


woman! Today, if the sun was shining and every¬ 
thing going well, she was as happy and joyous as 
a lark; as buoyant as though there were no such 
things as dark days. She was optimism personi¬ 
fied! Tomorrow, if the day was cloudy, it darkened 
her soul; if the sky was dreary and leaden-hued, her 
soul responded and she felt downcast and oppressed. 
A woman of moods. Up on the heights one mo¬ 
ment; down in the depths the next! 

In the few opportunities there had been for con¬ 
fidences, Jack had thrown out a hint or two regard¬ 
ing her previous acquaintance with Benton; but she 
had only responded with a frown and a sigh, and 
a promise to tell him “all about it—sometime.” So 
long as there was no immediate danger, she was con¬ 
tent to live her happy day while she could; for—as 
she argued with herself, with her feminine lack of 
reasoning—“he may not say anything after all, and 
if he does . . . well ... I shall have to make the 
best of it, that’s all!” 

A man would have done differently. He, under 
similar conditions—knowing the possibilities of the 
danger—would have endeavored to forestall them, and 
would have prepared his defence in advance so as to 
meet the problems when they presented themselves. 
The average woman, being more or less a hypocrite 
(probably because she knows her physical disability, 
and has to fall back on insincerity to hide and gloss 
over her weakness), lulls herself into a false security, 
thinking that because the blow has not /alien, it prob¬ 
ably never will. If her inner monitor asks the ques¬ 
tion: “Suppose the blow does fall; what then?” the 


174 


SOULS IN HELL 


woman, not being able to reason from cause to effect, 
and from the effect (as to a second premise) to a 
still further effect in order to evolve a plan of ac¬ 
tion, builds up a day-dream of what she would prefer 
to happen, and generally fools herself into believing 
that that is what will happen. It is one of the limi¬ 
tations of the feminine part of humanity. 

Mrs. Cogan had so blotted out the probability of 
Benton’s presence being a menace, she rarely ever 
thought of him; and it was only when she had heard 
him—on one or two occasions—pass the closed din¬ 
ing room doors on his way to catch his train home, 
that she had felt a sudden clutch at her heart, which 
made her skin turn cold and clammy, and had awak¬ 
ened her to the fact that the menace was still a 
possibility. 

In order to avoid a scene, Cogan had not men¬ 
tioned Benton’s name in the hearing of either his 
wife or Jack since the night of his first visit; had not 
even spoken of the progress the reconstruction of his 
play was making; and although his wife’s curiosity 
had prompted her once or twice to inquire about it, 
the desire was quickly stifled by the fear that the ac¬ 
tor’s name would be injected into the conversation. One 
evening, however, Benton left for New York much 
earlier than usual, and Cogan came into the dining 
room where Jack was smoking and skimming over the 
evening news. He sat down heavily in a chair. 

“Jack! Where’s Kitty? Putting the youngster to 
bed?” he asked in a weary tone. 

His brother-in-law glanced at him over the top of his 


SOULS IN HELL 


175 


paper. “Yes, I think she is. Are you through for 
the evening?” 

“Yeeah,” yawned Cogan, wearily. “I am thoroughly 
tired out tonight. Gee! I could sleep for a week—I 
am so tired!” 

“What’s the matter?” Jack asked with a smile. 
“Have your friends, the cats, been keeping you awake 
again?” 

“Oh, worse than cats! I’ve got my old enemy back 
again—insomnia,” sighed Cogan. “Have you ever been 
troubled that way?” 

Jack laughed. “No, thank goodness. The minute 
my head hits the hay, I am dead to the world.” 

“You are lucky! It’s the bane of the brain worker’s 
life! Here am I, yawning my blessed head off, and 
this big old hulk of mine tired to exhaustion; yet the 
minute I lie down in bed, the wheels in my cranium 
start off at a gallop, and I am more wide-awake than 
ever.” 

“Did you ever try that old gag of counting sheep?” 

“Oh, man, man! I’ve tried everything!” he said dis¬ 
consolately. “I’ve gone to bed on an empty stomach; 
I’ve gorged myself to surfeit; I’ve put my feet in hot 
water, in cold water, but with the same result. I’ve 
tried counting sheep, and the first thing I know is: I 
am shearing them, washing the wool, spinning and 
carding it, making it into cloth, showing the customer 
the goods, measuring him for a suit of clothes, cutting 
out the ...” 

“By Jove,” broke in Jack with a laugh, “It must 
be pretty bad. Glad I’m not a brain-worker!” 


SOULS IN HELL 


176 

“Well! ... I shall soon be through now with my 
play; then perhaps things will ease up a bit.” 

“How is it coming, Tom?” 

“Two or three evenings will about finish it, I think.” 

“I am glad for your sake, old man. I hope it will 
be a success.” 

“Well ... I shall be very much astonished if it 
is’nt,” replied Cogan. “It’s a darned good play, even 
if I say it myself.” He yawned loudly. “I think I’ll 
go to bed, and see if I can get some sleep. Good night, 
old man.” 

“Hey! Before you go, Tom, I want to tell you 
something.” 

Cogan halted, and leaned wearily against the door* 
frame. 

“Lie on your back, cross one foot over the other, 
and clasp your hands together over your tummy; then, 
close your eyelids lightly, and try to look at the inside 
of the back of your cranium.” 

“Yeh? All right; I’ll be the goat! Where’s the 
j oke ?” 

“The joke is: you’ll fall asleep in jig time,” Jack 
explained. Cogan looked at him incredulously. “Go 
along now, and give it a trial—as teacher tells you to.” 

“All right; I’ll try it,” yawned Cogan, with an air 
of unbelief. “I’ll try anything once.” 

“Yes, do. ‘There are more things in heaven and 
earth,’ Tom Cogan ...” 


XIV 


Next afternoon, as Jack had gone to play tennii 
at the Club, and Harold was amusing himself in the 
garden, Mrs. Cogan took advantage of their absence to 
delve into the mysteries of her cook-book with a view 
to making something new and tasty in desserts. She 
had found a recipe that was simple and looked promis¬ 
ing, and was reading it carefully when the front door 
bell rang. 

“Oh pshaw!” she ejaculated in a tone of irritation. 
“I wonder what gossip this is now—coming to disturb 
me. There’s no peace for the wicked.” 

She heard the servant usher the newcomer into the 
parlor, and tried to recognize the visitor’s voice 
through the closed sliding doors, but without success. 
In a few moments, the servant appeared in the other 
doorway. 

“It’s Mr. Benton, ma’am,” she announced. 

“Mr. Benton?” she said, hardly daring to trust her 
hearing. “What does he want?” 

“I told him the master wasn’t in, but he said he 
wanted to see you, ma’am.” 

“Me?” 

The servant nodded, then went into the kitchen. 

Mrs. Cogan had been bending over the cook-book, 

177 


178 


SOULS IN HELL 


and as she turned to ask the question, her face was in 
shadow; so she hoped that Maggie hadn’t noticed her 
change of color. She felt as white as a sheet! She 
stood for a moment, wondering what he wanted, and at 
this time of day. Perhaps he had made an appoint¬ 
ment to meet her husband here—she thought. 

“Strange that Tom didn’t say anything to me about 
it! Oh, well, I’d better go and get it over,” she mut¬ 
tered, frowning. She passed out into the hall, and en¬ 
tered the parlor. 

The actor stood examining a framed photograph of 
herself which was on the small table. He turned to 
greet her suavely. 

“I must apologize exceedingly for disturbing you, 
but ... uh ... in my haste last evening, I inadver¬ 
tently left my notebook on Mr. Cogan’s desk.” 

‘Must be a very valuable notebook to induce you to 
make a special journey for it’—she thought, noticing 
the leer in his eyes. She guessed that he was lying, 
and wondered what the motive was. Bowing frigidly, 
she went to the door of the study to see if it Was 
locked; for, sometimes, in his forgetfulness, Cogan 
would turn the key in the lock. She turned the 
handle, and threw open the door. With a curt wave 
of her hand, she indicated that he could enter and get 
his property. 

“Ah, yes, there it is,” he said, pointing to a small 
red diary on the desk. “I would not lose that for 
worlds! Do you know,” he smirked, coming back into 
the parlor, “this is one of the most valuable Books in 
my collection. One I should be extremely sorry to 
lose.” He held the diary up for her to see it. 


SOULS IN HELL 


179 


Still as a statue, she wondered what was coming. 

“It is full of interesting items of—interesting places, 
of the interesting people I have met in the course of 
my travels, and the . . . uh . . . dates on which I had 
the pleasure of meeting them.” He caressed the mo¬ 
rocco binding with an exaggerated affectation of affec¬ 
tion. 

With an expression of boredom, she slowly turned 
to the door—as a hint that she was not interested. 

“Do you know,” he continued in a smooth, oily voice, 
“the other day I came across, among other very precious 
items, the date on which I first made your acquaint¬ 
ance.” 

She turned to face him, and drew herself up stiffly. 
“I am afraid that does not interest me in the slightest 
degree!” 

“It doesn’t?” he asked with an expression of aston¬ 
ishment. “Why . . . that was one of my red-letter 
days.” 

She frowned with impatience, and the hot color 
mounted into her face. “You will have to excuse me! 
I have other, and more important things to attend to.” 
She turned to leave the room. 

“One moment!” he insisted, putting up his jewelled 
hand to detain her. “I also found that I had marked 
the date on which I received your first letter. A very 
sweet letter it was, I well remember; as indeed . . they 
all were.” His lips curled with a smile. 

Her bosom began to heave. The letters she had 
written to him—she had forgotten all about them! 
They had been completely effaced from her memory. 
Now the long forgotten incidents came rushing into 


180 


SOULS IN HELL 


her mind; arousing a feeling of anger for having writ¬ 
ten them, and at him for reminding her of her foolish¬ 
ness in the past. 

“I have no desire to be reminded of the time when 
I was a foolish, stage-struck girl,” she flashed in a bit¬ 
ter tone. “I am a woman now, and with a trifle more 
experience of the world.” 

“Ah . . . pardon me, but ... I do not agree with 
you,” he replied suavely. “You do yourself an in¬ 
justice, a great injustice. Your letters were ... I 
should say, are . . . very clever and exceedingly inter¬ 
esting. Many and many a time I have read them 
when I felt lonely, and needed . . . ah . . . consoling.” 

She stared at him blankly, a vague fear gripping 
her. “Do you mean . . that . . . you have kept ...” 

“Certainly I have kept them!” he exclaimed in mock 
astonishment. “Dear me,” he added, as though chiding 
her playfully, “you do not think I would throw such 
charming epistles away, do you? No, indeed! Why, 
I have treasured them carefully and . . . tenderly, all 
these years!” 

She was ready to drop! Her blood seemed to freeze 
in her veins; her heart seemed to stop! Her lips 
quivered nervously as she gazed at him, dumbfounded. 
He watched the agony in her face with a smile of 
satisfaction. 

“Why cannot we be friends?” he asked in a seduc¬ 
tive, pleading tone. “It would mean so much to me! I 
live such a lonely, loveless kind of existence, I should 
be glad to have you for a . . . friend .” He put a deli¬ 
cate hut unmistakable stress on the word. “Life is so 
short and fleeting; and friendships, especially renewed 


SOULS IN HELL 


181 


friendships, are so precious .” He leered at her with 
half closed eyes. 

She drew herself up haughtily. “I shall ask my hus¬ 
band to find another place where you can finish your 
work on his play,” she said, stung into action. 

Benton smiled cynically. “But wouldn’t that only 
complicate matters . . . unnecessarily? For , . . natur¬ 
ally ... he would want to know why, and . . . 
naturally . . . I . . should have to tell him the rea¬ 
son; and . . .” his lips curled in a cruel smile, “per¬ 
haps . . . most likely ... I am afraid he would want 
to read the . . . letters.” 

“You beast! You coward!” she burst out in a voice 
shaking with fear. 

“But, as I remarked before,” he went on, unabashed, 
“if we are . . . friends, why . . . those letters could be 
a pleasant tie between us, and ... I am very good at 
keeping secrets.” 

As the full meaning of his words sank into her 
mind, her dazed brain sought blindly for an avenue of 
escape from this insult to her womanhood. His keep¬ 
ing her letters all these years—for some such purpose 
as this, evidently—seemed to her as being the act of 
a cold-blooded fiend. While he watched the effect of 
his words, a thought came into her mind, and sha 
caught at it with the hopefulness of despair. 

Trying to affect a nonchalance she did not feel, she 
gave a short laugh. Her lip curled with a sneer as sho 
said: 

“You must think I am easy, or that you have a 
young inexperienced girl to deal with. To try to 
frighten me into believing that you have kept those 


182 


SOULS IN HELL 


idiotic letters! You should give me credit for having 
a little more sense.” She made a brave attempt to 
look scornfully at him. 

He smiled condescendingly, and shrugged his shoul¬ 
ders lazily. “So you think I am lying, do you?” 

“I don’t think at all about it; I know you are, you 
cad!” 

He chuckled softly, very much amused at her at¬ 
tempt to evade the net he was drawing around her. 
“Then your own eyes shall prove the contrary. You 
shall see them for yourself!” He bowed mockingly. 

She reeled as though struck with a blow! Affecting 
not to notice her distress, he languidly stuck his mon¬ 
ocle in his eye, took out his watch, and glanced at the 
time. 

“Awfully sorry, but I must leave you. I have to 
catch my train,” he drawled, walking leisurely to the 
door; “and pleasure, this time at any rate, must give 
way to business. So . . . for the present, auf wieder - 
sehen .” He again bowed to her; then left the house. 




Numb with fear, her brain reeling, she closed her 
eyes. It had come! The blow had fallen! 

Her mind, bewildered with the shock of the an¬ 
nouncement that her letters were still in existence and 
in his possession, was not so dulled as to prevent her 
seeing his purpose. He wanted her for a friend! 
She knew only too well what he meant, and her indig- 


SOULS IN HELL 


183 


nation rose at the thought. The vile, low cur! She 
would inform her husband, as soon as he came home, 
of the proposal his gentlemanly guest had made to her, 
and see what he thought of it. She would not tolerate 
being insulted in her own house, not if she could help 
it! She would show him! She would insist on Tom 
kicking him out of the house that evening—play or 
no play! Her thoughts raced through her brain; and, 
giving them full rein, she rejoiced in the anticipation 
of Benton’s humiliation. In her mind’s eye, she could 
vision the berserk rage of her husband venting itself on 
her enemy, and she smiled, delighted with the picture. 

But! . . . and then the clammy clutch of fear 
gripped her heart again! Those letters! What if he 
did have them? What if he had kept them? She 
had tried to read his eyes when she had as much as 
told him he was lying, and . . . she, tearfully, had to 
admit that he appeared confident—only too confident 
of his assertion. And ... he said she should see them 
—with her own eyes, and be convinced that they were 
still in his possession. He wouldn’t have said that if 
he didn’t have them. There seemed to be no loop¬ 
hole of escape! God! what a fool she had been! What 
an idiotic fool she had been to write them! Only 
vaguely did she remember them; but she knew they 
were full of gush and foolish inanities such as hundreds 
of other stage-struck, matinee-idol-mashed, silly girls 
wrote to the ideal of their dreams—the stage hero. 
What a fool! 

She could not recall with any definiteness the phrases 
in the letters, but she remembered how her hot, pas¬ 
sionate young blood surged through her veins at that 


184 


SOULS IN HELL 


period of her life, overfull with the undefined desires 
of budding womanhood; the demand of her strong 
sex nature seeking recognition and satisfaction; the 
call of the mother element welling forth from every 
part of her; the mother-love of countless generations 
focussed in her being, demanding utterance and ex* 
pression in stalwart sons and graceful daughters. 

She remembered how powerfully her emotional states 
at that time of her life possessed and affected her. 
How she had enjoyed using her facility and flow of 
language, coupled with her dramatic instinct, as a 
means to lessen the strain of her emotional tempera¬ 
ment. The sex urge controlled her so imperatively, 
she had to have some outlet for its expression; and 
she saw, now, when it was too late, what a damning 
implication and meaning could be put on those words 
by the average man of the world. And Tom Cogan! 
Would he, even if he could, would he try to under¬ 
stand what the sex urge and emotions raging in her 
soul meant to her at that time; and, putting him¬ 
self in her place, could he form any conception of 
such a condition? She knew in her innermost soul 
that such a thing was out of the question; that it 
was physically impossible for him—a man—to under¬ 
stand what the pent-up passion and yearning of a 
woman meant to her. Even Nature itself conspired 
against her! Whether she would or not, the law of 
her femininity forced the conditions upon her; she had 
no say in the matter. And while her soul and body 
desired to follow the dictates of her nature, there 
were the hard and fast and—to one of her passional 
type-—cruel conventions of modern society to be con- 


SOULS IN HELL 


185 


sidered and observed. Young men—from her point 
of view—were more fortunate. They had the license 
of the double standard of morality, and could sow 
their wild oats without being besmirched by conven¬ 
tional opinion; but a young woman,—she had to keep 
“straight;” to suffer and burn; or, if she gave way 
to her impulses—to follow the dictates of her nature, 
be condemned by both men and women! 

No! She felt certain that it was useless to try to 
explain her moods, her emotions, her desires, her pangs 
of those days to her husband. She was convinced 
that her explanation of the affair would have but little 
weight with him; and, while she now congratulated 
herself on the fact that she had resisted all temptations 
to break the accepted conventional code, she dreaded 
with an overwhelming despair to think of the possibili¬ 
ties. She knew that side of her husband too well! She 
knew what strict ideas he held on the question; for she 
was aware that he—when commenting on the laxity of 
the modern woman, so different from his mother and 
the women of her circle—had boasted to his friends 
that he, for one at any rate, had been fortunate 
enough to marry a woman without a “past;” that his 
wife—he was proud to say—was one woman at whom 
no accusing finger could be pointed. The reflection 
that, however much appearances might be against her, 
she could say, and say truthfully: “I am innocent of 
any wrong-doing,” gave her some consolation; but the 
thought of what the probable effect of her explanation 
would be, perturbed her. What would he say? The 
question seared her brain, and crushed her soul. 


186 


SOULS IN HELL 


“Wath th’ matter? Why ith ’oo cwying?” lisped 
her child. Unnoticed, he had come into the room, and 
now pulled at her skirt, looking with wondering eyes at 
her terror-stricken face. 

With a sob of anguish, she sank to her knees, and 
gathering the child into her arms, convulsively pressed 
him to her bosom. 


XV 


The afternoon passed—somehow; how, she didn’t 
know. She had thrown herself on the bed, to be alone 
with her misery; every nerve in her body aching with 
a dull, throbbing pain. Her head seemed on fire; her 
eyes felt as though a red-hot flame had scorched them, 
for her tears refused to flow. 

“My usual sick headache,” was what she told Cogan 
when he came to her room to inquire if she were ill. 
“Tell Maggie to do the best she can with the dinner, 
and tell her to send Harold up to bed early.” 

An hour or so later, Harold entered the bedroom 
and announced that Uncle Jack had gone out for the 
evening, and as Maggie was too busy to play with him, 
he had come to “vithit muwer.” 

“Bless your dear heart,” his mother cried, clasping 
him in her arms. “You are Mumsie’s own darling 
sweetheart, aren’t you?”—caressing his golden curls. 

The child nodded gravely. “Yeth, me mumthie’th 
thweetheart,” he lisped. 

“Mumsie’ll put your nightie on; then you can lie in 
your little bed, and play sick like Mumsie.” 

“Ith ’oo thik?” he asked, softly touching her cheek 
as she unbuttoned his clothes. 

The thoughts of the danger hanging over her 

187 


188 


SOULS IN HELL 


crowded into her mind. Swallowing the lump in her 
throat, she merely nodded in answer to the boy’s ques* 
tion. 

“Why ith ’oo thik?” the child insisted. 

Recognizing the futility of trying to answer the 
question, she looked at him with a faraway gaze. 
Then, as another and hitherto unthought-of phase of 
the problem presented itself to her wearied mind, her 
eyes focussed on the boy’s face; and, as the thought 
grew, she felt like shrieking aloud in her agony. 

Whenever she had pondered over the disclosure of 
her correspondence with Benton, the effect that that 
disclosure would have on her husband had been the one 
and only thought uppermost in her mind. It had not 
occurred to her that it might have a further and more 
important result; that it might affect her more seri¬ 
ously than merely a separation from her husband. 
That, in all conscience, would be a blow quite hard 
enough to bear; but . . . 

Her eyes opened wide, aghast with horror as she 
realized now that Cogan would, on separating from her, 
take the child with him ; that not only would she lose 
her husband, but also lose that which was infinitely 
more precious to her than life itself—her boy! 

She was stunned! All that made her home a heav¬ 
en on earth, that made life worth the living, would be 
snatched away from her. Oh! dear God in heaven! 
Was that to be the outcome of her folly? Was she 
to lose her child? The child for whom she had nearly 
given her life when it was born; at whose sick-bed she 
had watched for a week of sleeplessness and anxiety; 
a week of which every moment was a living hell! The 


SOULS IN HELL 


189 


boy she idolized; the one great passion of her life; 
literally a part of her own body, yea, of her very 
soul; to be tom from her because of the deviltry of 
this fiend—Benton? Was that to he her Cross? Her 
Gethsemane? 

She gazed in hopeless terror at the boy, now almost 
asleep; his little form nestling in her arm; his chubBy 
fingers lightly clasping hers; his curly head pillowed 
on her breast. 

A curiously strange , indefinable feeling crept over 
her. 

It seemed as if something inside her had changed; 
as though some unknown element deeply hidden within 
her had come to the surface of her being. A feeling 
of detachment from her personality;—as if she—the 
soul, the thinking entity—stood apart from her physi¬ 
cal body, and looked down on her troubled mind from 
an impersonal point of view. 

Soft, electric-like waves swept through her with a del¬ 
icate, tremulous touch which left a feeling of coldness 
on her warm skin, and made the muscles and nerve- 
fibres taut and rigid. Her eyes opened wide with a 
fixed stare. The room seemed filled with strange pres¬ 
ences , presences she did not recognize but who were 
strangely familiar to her; as if she had known them 
sometime , but could not remember when or where. 
As they moved around her, gently jostling each other 
in their desire to help her, she felt attuned to them , 
and gave them an unspoken welcome. Their coming 
seemed to be a matter of course; nothing out of the 
ordinary, but something to be expected at such a time 
and under such conditions. The question as to who 


190 


SOULS IN HELL 


they were arose in her mind for a moment; but the 
next instant it was forgotten in the gentle clamoring 
of the vague shapes pressing their attentions on her. 

Out of the babel of whisperings that surrounded her, 
—whisperings which conveyed to her advice of various 
sorts coupled with condolences,—a voice stronger and 
clearer than the others made itself heard. Appar¬ 
ently, it came from one of greater authority than the 
rest, for the voices gradually sank to soft mutterings, 
leaving the one as spokesman. 

“Benton, like all his kind, is a sore and a canker on 
the body social; a cancerous growth in the healthy, 
living tissues of human society. For the cancer in a 
physical body, extending its tentacles in the healthy 
flesh from which it derives its nourishment, there is but 
one remedy, and only one : to cut it out by the roots, 
sever its connections with its victim, and —destroy it! 
So with this Benton; this fiend; this human cancer! 
There is but one way to stop his baneful, malignant 
growth, and that is, to kill him; to cut him out of the 
body of Humanity on which he is a festering gan¬ 
grene; to blot him out without the slightest compunc¬ 
tion, and so rid society of a damnable pest!” 

Such was the tenor of the advice which seemed to 
come from the presence behind her; bending over her 
shoulder to whisper in her ear. The vague forms of 
the other presences around her nodded in agreement. 

The voice continued in a cold, judicial tone: 

“You, who know this reptile and his power for doing 
harm to others as also to yourself, will be benefitting 
society by wiping out this lecherous vampire from 
the face of the earth. You know that this city, 


SOULS IN HELL 


191 


nay, the whole country, the whole world, is full of his 
kind; respectable men to all outward appearance, some 
of them in high positions, in so-called ‘best* society, 
in places of power, yes, even in the churches and re¬ 
ligious bodies—which should be sacred!—you can find 
his kind contaminating, seducing, destroying young 
men and maidens. If you, who know this man and his 
abominable life will not raise a hand to stop his 
devilment, you are as much responsible for his career 
as if you helped him in his wickedness. By allowing 
this man to live, you are giving him more opportu¬ 
nities to continue his evil-doing. On the great Judg¬ 
ment Day, God will demand a reckoning from you. 
What will you say?” 

At the name of God, all the presences bowed to the 
ground in humble obeisance. 

The child , pillowed on her breast , gave a nervous 
shudder , and reaching its little hand toward her face , 
sighed tremulously. 

She came out of her reverie with a start, and sat 
bolt upright. Her nervous system strained to the 
verge of breaking, the pupils of her eyes contracted 
almost to pin-points, she appeared to be a different wo¬ 
man from the normal, passionate, fun-loving Mrs. Co- 
gan of other days. She herself was partly aware of the 
change, and she noted with a curious feeling of 
satisfaction that her heart was beating with its 
usual steadiness and at its ordinary speed; that al¬ 
though she felt calm and dispassionate, her body 
seemed as if made of steel. Glancing at her boy, 
his head now in the hollow of her arm, she saw that he 
was sleeping peacefully. Carrying him tenderly to his 


192 


SOULS IN HELL 


own little crib near her bed, she gently laid him down; 
observing with a smile that her actions were governed 
by a deliberation which was foreign to her. She felt 
immensely pleased at the discovery. 

Standing at the side of the crib, gazing down on 
her child, she went over everything that the presence 
had said. She remembered every word, every inflec¬ 
tion, every cold, biting phrase; and as she repeated 
it to herself, she admitted the cogency of the state¬ 
ment. 

“Yes . . . what shall I say when God asks me?” 
she queried inwardly, conjuring up the picture of a 
human-shaped Being sitting on a throne surrounded 
by angels with wings, judging the righteous and the 
unrighteous; separating the sheep from the goats on 
the great “Last Day”—the Day of Judgment; a pic¬ 
ture implanted in her mind by the religious training 
of her childhood. She shuddered, dismayed at the 
prospect of being cast into everlasting darkness, and 
being separated from her child—for all eternity! 

Undressing herself slowly,—for the strange sense 
of unnatural calm affected her,—she got into her own 
bed, and lay there endeavoring to evolve a plan to 
defeat Benton’s machinations against her honor and 
her happiness. 

Wild schemes presented themselves to her imagina¬ 
tion. 

She speculated on the possibilities of entering hif 
hotel rooms while he was busy some evening in her hus¬ 
band’s study, and ransacking his belongings with the 
hope of discovering her letters and burning them. 
While working out the details of this plan, another, 


SOULS IN HELL 


193 


and yet other extravagant ideas for revenge occurred 
to her. Fortunately for her sanity, Nature finally 
asserted itself, and sleep, thrice blessed sleep, came to 
soothe her overstrained nerves and fevered brain. 




The next day she felt ill and tired, and sick from 
exhaustion. 

Before leaving for his office, Cogan had come into 
her room early in the morning, to kiss her and ask 
her how she was; the shades being down, he did not 
notice how drawn and worn-out she appeared. 

“C&n I do or get anything for you,” he asked, 
leaning over the bed and caressing her hand awk¬ 
wardly. 

Like most men of large, muscular build, he was ill 
at ease in a sickroom; he was out of place. Blessed 
with a strong, virile body, sickness was something he 
could not understand; nor could he muster any sym¬ 
pathy for the sufferer. Used to the rude buffetings 
of the world, he enjoyed the hurly-burly—the blows 
given him by Nature and Man, returning them in kind 
to the latter, if possible—and gloried in his physical 
well-being; with the opposite—weakness or ill-health, 
which he looked upon as being a sort of crime,—he had 
no sympathy whatever; it did not belong to his scheme 
of things. So he was relieved to hear her say: 

“No, Tom; I’ll be all right in an hour or so. I 


194 


SOULS IN HELL 


didn’t sleep well last night—had a headache, and— 
I’ll be up in an hour or so.” 

“All right, old girl,”—he bent down and kissed her 
forehead, “have a good snooze; you’ll be all right 
then.” 

At the door he stopped, and turned with a final 
question—as though he had only just then thought 
of it. “Shall I ’phone to the doctor?” 

“No. Don’t be silly, Tom! I only want to rest for 
a little while, that’s all.” 

Just Before noon she dragged her weary, aching 
body out of bed, dressed, and went downstairs to the 
dining room; her face so drawn with suffering that 
her brother postponed his proposed journey to town, 
and concluded he would stay at home. Intuitively he 
had connected his sister’s careworn face with Benton, 
feeling sure that there was something in her acquaint¬ 
ance with him which she was afraid to make known. 
He wondered what it could be. Later in the day, a 
chance remark of Harold’s to the effect that “that 
man” Daddy brought had been there the previous 
afternoon convinced Jack that his surmise was correct, 
and that he had the clue to her indisposition. 

“I thought you were going to town today, Jack,” 
his sister said, when she heard him invite Harold out 
for a game of ball on the lawn. 

“I did intend going, Kitty; but ... I don’t know,” 
—forcing a lazy yawn. “I don’t feel quite up to the 
mark. Guess I am living too high.” 

But when he went out with the boy, she marked 
the supple swing of his lithe body as he picked up the 
youngster with one hand, and set him astride his 


SOULS IN HELL 


195 


shoulders. There was no lack of healthy vigor in 
his movements as far as she could see; he looked 
“fit” to her. Guessing that his excuse for staying 
at home was not the true reason, nevertheless, she was 
content not to push the inquiry any further; feeling, 
with a sense of securit}^, that she would be glad to 
have him near—in case the actor paid her another 
surprise visit. 

To a healthy young man of athletic build and 
restless physical energy, dawdling around a house all 
day with nothing particular to do is somewhat of a 
penance, and likely to get monotonous. Jack soon 
began to find time hanging heavily on his hands, for 
the boy’s play was not strenuous enough for one of 
his energetic nature, and he longed for the smashing 
and volleying of the tennis court. Harold’s remark 
regarding Benton’s visit, and the sight of his sister’s 
wan troubled face, however, made him hold to his reso¬ 
lution of “sticking around” for awhile. 

Luncheon finished, he announced his intention of 
lying down on the Mission lounge in the parlor, say¬ 
ing, as an excuse, “I am logy and dopey. My liver 
must be on the blink!” With an air of lassitude he 
glanced over the titles of the books in the bookcase, 
looking for something to read and while away the 
time. 

“Oh, Kitty!” he called, “what was the name of that 
book you said would interest me? Something about 
‘occult arts’ or some such thing.” 

“You mean ‘Magic—Black and White,’ ” she an¬ 
swered, coming into the parlor. I’ll get it for you; I 
know exactly where it is.” She opened the case, and 


196 


SOULS IN HELL 


found the book. “This is the one. I think you will 
find it very interesting.” 

“Thanks,” he said. He grasped her fingers that 
held the book, and looked her squarely in the eyes, 
questioningly. 

Her woman’s intuition caught the meaning of his 
action. Her eyes dropped, and with a deep sigh she 
said, softly, “Not now! I cannot tell you now. Some 
other time, Jack.” 

He made no answer other than to squeeze her hand 
gently. She gave him a look of gratitude, then turned 
away and went upstairs. 

For all his strength and good intentions, Jack was 
helpless! He was certain, however, that his guess of 
Benton being at the bottom of the affair was correct. 
His knuckles showed white as he clinched his fists. 
So far as he could see, it was evident that Cogan was 
not aware of this affair between his wife and Benton; 
and it was quite as evident that she had no intention of 
acquainting her husband with the matter. If she had 
had any such purpose, she would have informed him 
before this; and he certainly would not bring the actor 
to his house night after night after having been told 
what had happened. Apparently, it was something 
she did not dare tell her husband! 

What could that something he? 

Unwilling to harbor the thought, the cruel suspicion 
forced itself into his mind. It could mean only one 
thing: his sister had had compromising relations with 
this Benton before her marriage; and now, for some 
reason or other, the actor was using the power that 
liaison gave him to bedevil and threaten her in some 


SOULS IN HELL 


197 


way;—what way, he could not even hazard a guess. 
The thought of his sister—half-sister, it is true, but 
nevertheless his sister—having anything to do with the 
reptile, and in such a relation, sickened and disgusted 
him; but as he pondered over the possibility of her 
being in Benton’s toils and perhaps at his mercy, 
Jack’s face hardened and a tense, grim smile played 
over his lips. Seeing that Cogan was not supposed to 
know, and therefore unable to take a hand in the 
game, he—Jack Waller —he would attend to Benton’s 
case! A woman was no match for such a scoundrel; 
the business called for a man who could handle a man’s 
size job; and it gave him a pleasurable sensation to 
reflect that it would give him the opportunity to finish 
the job he had started when he punched the actor 
on board ship. 

Extending his arms and shutting his fists tightly, 
he tensed his muscles, then brought his fists smartly 
to his shoulders. He noted with satisfaction how the 
hard muscles rippled beneath the smooth skin, even 
those of the arm that had been wounded responding 
to his command with only a slight stiffness conse¬ 
quent on the setting of the bone; and, as he assured 
himself, the two weeks of his holiday which were yet 
to come before his time of leave expired, would give 
him ample time to put Benton down and out, so far 
as annoying his sister was concerned. 

Throwing himself on the couch, he opened the book, 
inwardly praying that Benton would repeat his after¬ 
noon’s visit, and so give him the longed-for opportu¬ 
nity of thrashing him within an inch of his life. He 
would show him! He’d give him a lesson the actor 


198 


SOULS IN HELL 


would never forget this side of the grave! He’d 
teach him to avoid this house in the future! After 
all the excitement of the front, he felt out of place in 
this peaceful village, where the only flutter a fellow with 
red blood in his veins could get was the reading of 
the stunts some of his pals in the Aviation Squadron 
were pulling off; and he welcomed the idea of using 
some of his excess energy in manhandling Benton, at 
the same time giving himself some real enjoyment and 
entertainment. “I’ll give him a nice scientific lacing—* 
first, then I’ll hand him a few smashes that’ll put him 
in the hospital for a few weeks!” With which blood¬ 
thirsty promise he dismissed the matter from his mind, 
and tried to get interested in the book; but its small 
print together with his recumbent position—unaccus¬ 
tomed at this time of the day—made reading out of 
the question, and he found it difficult to keep his eyes 
open. Accepting the inevitable, he closed the book, and 
sank into a heavy slumber. 

When he awoke, it was to find that Cogan had 
telephoned home to tell his wife that he would be de¬ 
tained in his office, and would not be home to dinner; 
also that he had notified Benton to call the work on the 
play off for the evening, as Cogan did not know how 
late he would be. 

Jack noticed the sense of relief in his sister’s voice 
when she told him the actor would not come that 
evening. 

After they had had dinner, she went up stairs to 
put the boy to bed; and Jack feeling the need of 
fresh air and exercise, stood at the front door de¬ 
bating what he should do. Nothing would have 


SOULS IN HELL 


199 


pleased him more than a brisk walk for an hour or 
two—to shake out the kinks in his muscles, and clear 
the cobwebs from his brain. Undecided, he lit a cigar 
and strolled aimlessly down the steps and on to the 
lawn, continuing slowly around the gable end of the 
house—toward the rear of the garden. 

He stood meditatively watching the stars as they 
gradually made their appearance in the now darken¬ 
ing eastern sky; now twinkling faintly, now lost; then 
shining out more clearly as the warm light waned. 
The wonder and glory of the twilight, shimmering 
with its unearthly light, a light that seemed to belong 
to the borderland between earth and heaven, always 
fascinated him. It lifted him out of the crude garish 
things of the day, and filled his soul with awe. The 
tender coloring, the lavender greys pervaded by soft 
tints and flushes of rose and dull orange; the tones 
with their subtle nuances, delicately merging one into 
the other, and all veiled by a filmy, tremulous green 
greyness which gave the effect of other-worldness,— 
its unreality, its illusiveness, its dreamy quality. 

He always felt uplifted at the sight of the limpid 
depths percolated with living light; and now, as the 
sky began to darken to a violet mystery, and the hosts 
of heaven commenced their evening song of praise, he 
raised his head, humbly, yet with a great and holy 
pride, to think that he, too, was a part of this 
glory, this wonder, this magnificent display of Power. 

Absorbing the beauty of the scene, he wondered— 
with a feeling of sadness—why human Beings should 
waste their lives seeking and fighting for the puerilities 
of existence; the things of a day, the things of little 


200 


SOULS IN HELL 


worth, the toys and baubles of ordinary life, when 
they could— if they only would—get nearer to the 
fundamentals of life, and know more of the realities 
and verities of human existence. (Yes, this was the 
same young man, the same Jack Waller who, only 
a few hours before, had contemplated with delight 
on the pleasure he expected to derive from handing 
Benton a “few smashes that’ll put him in the hospital 
for a few weeks!”) 

This phase of his character which was always 
evoked by the beauty of Nature, beautiful pictures, 
and sublime passages in poetry and other literature, 
was unknown to his friends; indeed, it was but little 
known to himself; for while profoundly affected by 
the emotions that state of mind produced in him, 
he felt—after the emotion had passed—as though 
he had given way to something akin to feminine weak¬ 
ness, and which he feared was unmanly. As for 
exhibiting those emotions, or allowing his intimates 
to know that he felt them, that was out of the question. 
Speaking precisely, it had been out of the question 
up to the time he had gone to France and joined 
the Escadrille. There he acquired a new viewpoint, 
and discovered—to his delight and inward joy—that, 
deep religious feeling instead of being incompatible 
with manliness was, in truth, the element in a man 
which made for brotherhood, and tended to not only 
uplift a man, but was the only real basis on which to 
build a lasting and better manhood. 

His present emotional state affected him deeply, 
and, forgetting for the time Benton and his anger 


SOULS TS HELL 


201 


against him, he breathed a deep sigh of peaceful 
content. 


j* 


A man came tip the garden path to the front of the 
house, walked tip the “stoop,” hesitated a moment 
in the open doorway, then disappeared in the dimly 
lighted parlor. He had been there only a moment or 
two when Mrs. Cogan came down the stairs. Hearing 
the footsteps and thinking it was her brother who 
had entered, she went in. 

“Why don’t you put the light on?” she asked, 
pushing the switch button. “That’s more cheerful, 
isn’t it?” 

A smile on her lips, she turned to face . . . Benton! 

The shock of the surprise sent all the color from her 
face when, with a look of stupefaction, she saw who 
it was. 

“I am sorry to take you by surprise, but . . . er 
... I saw the door was open, and ... er ... I walked 
in expecting to find your husband in his study as 
usual,” was his glib apology. 

“Mr. Cogan telephoned to you not to come this 
evening,” she said in an icy tone, trying to regain her 
composure. 

“He did?” He looked at her with a well-feigned 
air of astonishment. “Strange they didn’t give me the 
message at my hotel!” 

He glanced at her from under his lids to see how 


SOULS IN HELL 


202 

she took his explanation. She stood staring at him, 
frigidly. 

“Well . . . er . . . since I am here, I may as well 
do some of the work I still have to do on the play. 
That is,” he added hurriedly, “if you have no ob¬ 
jection.” 

“I do not interfere with my husband’s affairs,” sh® 
replied coldly. “The door is open, and you probably 
can turn on the lights.” 

She turned swiftly to leave the room. He held up 
a detaining hand. 

“Pardon . . . just a moment! I have brought 
something with me that I wish to show you.” 

He took out of his breast pocket a small package 
of old letters, tied with a narrow pale-blue ribbon. 
With an ironic smile, he held the package so that 
she could read the writing on the top envelope. 

It was her own handwriting! She recognized the 
color, now faded, of the envelope—a delicate lavender 
tint, a color she had much affected years ago. 

Fascinated, her eyes followed the curves of the 
writing, full as they were of her personal touches, 
even to the strong thick line underscoring the name; 
a little affectation of masculine accentuation she used 
to be so proud of! At the sight of them, all her 
elaborate plans and schemes for thwarting him crum¬ 
pled into nothingness. She was beaten! The previous 
afternoon she had put up the best bluff she knew; 
now he called her bluff with the winning cards in 
his hand. Yes! she was done; and as the full 
realization of the fact and what it meant for her 
dawned on her mind, her head sank slowly. 


SOULS IN HELL 


203 


His thin lips curled with a cruel sneer. “You 
thought I was lying to you, yesterday; didn’t you?” 
he asked, triumphantly. “If my memory serves me, 
you as much as told me so—yesterday. Here is your 
answer! What do you think of it?” 

\ es, that was her answer! She could not gain¬ 
say it! She could do nothing except . . . and she 
inwardly moaned as she recognized the futility of the 
suggestion which came into her min d . . . except 
throw herself on his mercy. His mercy!—she re¬ 
flected bitterly; but, so far as she could see, there 
was nothing left but that. 

“Won’t yon be man enough to return them to 
me?” she pleaded. “If you have the slightest shred 
of honor in you, you will give them to me ... at 
once!” 

He looked at the package affectionately. Turning 
it, he ran his finger over the comers, slowly, to show 
her what a number of letters were there. Still turning 
the package slowly, so that she could see every part 
of it, he said softly: 

“These letters mean so much to me. To me, they 
are worth their weight in gold!” 

“Then name your price, and I will buy them!” 
she exclaimed, a gleam of hope in her eyes. “How 
much money do you want for them?” 

He chuckled joyously, enjoying her distress. “Oh, 
tut, tut! Money? I don’t need money. Money won’t 
buy these,” he said in a definite tone, shaking his 
head; “but . . . your love will! Come to my apart¬ 
ment, and I’ll give them to you.” He leered at her 
with a lecherous grin. 


204 


SOULS IN HELL 


Her breath coming in quick gasps, she stood 
though stricken; looking at him with a hunted 
pression on her drawn pale face. 


XVI. 


Jack’s meditations on the beauty of the twilight 
came to an abrupt end when, on turning toward the 
house, he saw the light from the window of Cogan’s 
study shining on the shrubbery outside. 

“Good news!” he muttered, walking toward the win¬ 
dow. “Tom must have come home sooner than he ex¬ 
pected. I’ll get him to come for a stroll.” 

He paused at the window to greet Cogan—whom he 
expected to see at his desk, a jocular remark ready on 
his lips. His delight at the expectation of having the 
company of his brother-in-law quickly changed when 
he saw, through the open doorway of the study, his sis¬ 
ter with an agonized expression standing before Ben¬ 
ton who was languidly tapping the package of letters 
with his fat fingers. 

“Well . . . I’ll be damned!” he exploded. “That 
cursed skunk again! When the hell did he get here? 
By all the gods, I’ll settle you this time if I have to 
break your neck!” Flaming with anger he made his 
way swiftly to the front of the house. 

Turning the corner, he heard the front gate shut 
with a loud clang, and recognized the burly figure of 
Cogan striding up the path. Instinctively, he drew 
back into the shadows of the shrubbery. He realized 
205 


206 


SOULS IN HELL 


that he could not, at this time, interfere between his 
sister and Benton without apprising Cogan of the rea¬ 
son, thereby exposing Mrs. Cogan’s secret to her hus¬ 
band. On the other hand, if Cogan surprised them in 
the parlor and discovered the facts for himself, he, as 
her husband, would be in a position to say what should 
be done in the matter. In either case, Jack saw that 
for the moment anyway his hands were tied, and he 
could take no action. 

Inside, in the parlor, both the actor and Mrs. Cogan 
heard the gate slam; and as the latter recognized her 
husband’s forcible way of closing the gate, she turned 
deathly white and glanced with terror-stricken eyes to¬ 
ward the door. Guessing from the expression of her 
face that the footsteps approaching the house were her 
husband’s, the actor said in a low tone: 

“I shall expect your answer tomorrow afternoon . . . 
at my hotel. For your sake I hope you will come, 
otherwise . . .” 

He slipped quickly into the study, and having put 
on the lights, leisurely began taking off his gloves. 

Mrs. Cogan, weak and trembling with fear, opened 
the sliding doors sufficiently to allow her to pass into 
the dining room. She closed them as her husband 
stepped into the house. 

Hanging his hat on its peg in the hall, Cogan caught 
sight of the light in his study. Without waiting to 
take off his light overcoat, he proceeded into the par¬ 
lor. 

“Hello, Benton, old fellow!” he ejaculated, entering 
his den. “How long have you been here?” 

The actor turned to greet him. “I have only just 


SOULS IN HELL 


207 

arrived. Awfully sorry, but I couldn’t get down ear¬ 
lier—I was detained in town.” 

“But . . . didn’t you get my phone message?” 

“Phone message? No! What was it?” he inquired 
with an assumption of innocence. 

“Everything at my place got all balled up, and I ex¬ 
pected to be very late tonight; so I phoned your hotel 
to ask you not to come this evening.” 

“You did? Strange they didn’t tell me,” said Ben¬ 
ton with a perplexed look. “That confounded switch 
girl! This is the second time it has happened. I shall 
complain to the manager; giving me this journey for 
nothing!” 

“Tut, tut! I am glad now that you did not get it,” 
Cogan responded heartily. “We can almost finish this 
tonight,” pointing to the manuscript. 

“Are you sure it will not interfere with your ar¬ 
rangements ?” 

“On the contrary,” replied Cogan. “I have had my 
dinner, so we can start right in.” 




From his point of vantage in the shadow of the bush¬ 
es, Jack had noticed his sister’s expression of dismay 
when she heard her husband’s footsteps; had seen, too, 
how she had crumpled up at what was—judging from 
his motions with the letters—Benton’s threat to expose 
her. He had observed the actor’s quick action of put¬ 
ting on the light in the study, and his sister’s rapid 


208 


SOULS IN HELL 


exit and quick closing of the sliding doors. Her actions 
clearly indicated her guilt! The situation perplexed 
and stunned him! He swayed to and fro in anger at 
his own helplessness, and, cursing his luck, strode back 
to where, a few minutes before, he had been peacefully 
observing the stars. 

“Now, what the devil shall I do?” he growled sav¬ 
agely, walking nervously to and fro. “And how can I 
get hold of him without letting Cogan know of this rot¬ 
ten business?” He cursed his stupidity for not having 
stayed near the front of the house where he could have 
seen Benton’s arrival. “Those letters he’s got . . . I’ll 
bet they are hers, and he is using them as a club over 
her—the cursed rip! So . . .” he paused and nodded 
sagely, “I must get those letters from him . . .if I have 
to throttle him . . . but . . . get them I will!” 

Pacing from one end of the house to the other, his 
hot anger gradually subsided, and gave place to cool 
deliberation. “How am I to get hold of them? That's 
the question!” he put to himself. Soon the problem 
resolved itself, and he smiled grimly. “Of course . . . 
that’s it! That’s the idea!” 

He viciously punched the atmosphere with his fist, 
and bared his teeth with a quick intake of his breath. 

“I’ll wait for you, my nibs; and . . . then I’ll get 
you!” 

To make sure that he would not again miss his quar¬ 
ry, he strode with silent tread along the narrow strip 
of close cropped grass running the length of the house; 
glancing at the window of Oogan’s study as he passed. 


SOULS IN HELL 


209 


Mrs. Cogan stood in fear and trembling at the crack 
between the sliding doors to hear what was said when 
her husband discovered the actor’s presence. Hearing 
him express his satisfaction at the actor being there, 
and announcing his intention of getting to work cm the 
play, she saw there was nothing else for her to do but 
to go up to her bedroom, if only to avoid hearing her 
enemy’s hateful voice, and Jack’s inquiries in the event 
of his coming in. She was so utterly miserable, she 
did not wish her brother to see her; for he could not 
help noticing that something was wrong, and she was in 
no mood to answer questions — not even Jack’s. 

Cogan, too, was in a state of nervous tension. Every¬ 
thing in the editorial rooms of the Manhattan Short 
Story Magazine had gone wrong that day. Owing to 
some unaccountable freak, about a dozen half-tone 
plates had been made the wrong sizes. The plates were 
reproductions of various illustrations — some in two 
colors— which were needed by the printers to go to 
press the following day. Being the week when all the 
photo-engravers were chock-a-block with orders from 
the other magazines, and working overtime to get the 
finished plates to their customers, Cogan’s anger was 
excusable; for the predicament he was placed in of 
holding up the printers — who mapped out their time 
to coincide with the receiving of “copy”—was a ser¬ 
ious one, not to say anything of the magazine being 
four or five days late on the newsstands — which meant 
some financial loss. 

Benton noticed his quick, irritable manner. “What 
is all the excitement?” he asked languidly. “You are 
as nervous as an actor on the opening night !” 


210 


SOULS IN HELL 


In short, detached sentences, Cogan told him of the 
troubles with the magazine. 

“What is the use of worrying about it?” questioned 
the actor. “ ‘If ’tis done, ’tis done, and there’s an 
end on’t,’ ” he quoted. 

“I know it is asinine, but I’m that kind of animal,” 
the editor replied testily. “I work myself into a pas¬ 
sion, then when it is over, I am like a rag, and all in; 
nervous and irritable, and not fit for decent society. I 
could kick the stuffing out of . . .” He stopped short 
with a quick nervous gesture of disgust. “Gol . . . 
darn it!” he snapped irascibly, glancing toward the 
window. “That blasted racket again!” 

Benton pricked up his ears to listen to the yowling 
of two cats outside. “Does that annoy you?” he in¬ 
quired with an easy laugh. 

“If you were kept awake night after night by their 
infernal yelling, I’ll guarantee that you’d feel annoyed. 
It is perfectly exasperating—blast them!” 

The actor smiled tranquilly. “If they annoyed me 
to that extent, I’d get a nice steel gin-trap, and give 
them their quietus.” He snapped his fingers with a 
languid gesture to give point to his suggestion. 

Cogan put up with the noise for a few moments 
more, then threw open the window and poked his head 
out to see if he could locate their whereabouts. His 
eye fell on Jack who, half a dozen paces away, had 
halted in his walk to learn the meaning of the window 
being opened. 

“Oh, Jack, old chap! I’m feeling rotten tonight— 
on edge. I wish you would do me a favor, and scare 
those damned cats away.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


211 


*'Hmph , r? granted Jack. “If I had my gnn hare, 
I'd settle their hash for them! The beggars woke roe 
last night with their music. 5 ’ 

A bright idea struck Cogan. “Wait a moment, 
Jack, " he called. Opening the drawer of his desk, he 
took out his automatic revolver. “By gad, that’s the 
scheme!” he muttered. 

The actor saw the action, and his sallow face paled 
at the sight of the weapon. 

“Why . . . what are you going to do with that?” 
he asked, looking suspiciously at the editor. He had 
heard Jack’s voice outside, but had not caught the 
words, and for the moment he was slightly perturbed. 

Cogan was so full of his desire to have the noise 
stopped that he did not answer, but leaned out of the 
window to call to his brother-in-law. 

“Here you are, old man; here’s my gun. Catch! 
Go ahead and let us see what kind of a shot you are.” 

He threw the revolver to his brother-in-law, then 
closed the window, and pulled down the shade. 

After examining the weapon. Jack went stealthily 
toward the fence where the cats were yowling at each 
other under the bushes. Their amorous vocalizing was 
disturbed by a bullet splintering the fence, missing the 
principal performer by an inch or so. 

”Hm . . . might be better: but not so bad,” thought 
Jack; “considering that I don’t know the gun. Near 
enough, anyhow, especially with a bigger target,” he 
muttered, the thought of Benton flashing across his 
mind. 

Going to the window to return the revolver to Co- 


SOULS IN HELL 


213 

gan, he found the window closed and the shade drawn; 
he wondered what he should do with it. 

“Perhaps I had better hang on to it,” lie solilo¬ 
quized finally, dropping it into his pocket. “It may 
come in handy—if only to throw a scare into him.” 

He had resumed his walk for but a few steps when 
he suddenly stopped—why, he did not know, and 
turned on his heel to take the weapon into the 
house—to a place of safety. 

“I guess I don’t need it,” he muttered with a short 
laugh. “I can manage him without a gun; besides . .” 
He left the sentence incompleted. 


XVII 


Sitting at her bedroom window, alone but for her 
boy sleeping peacefully in his crib, Mrs. Cogan was 
going over in her mind, with endless repetitions, the 
various aspects of the hideous position in which she 
found herself. The deeper she delved seeking a solu¬ 
tion, the more entangled the maze appeared to be. 
Apparently, there was no escape for her; nothing 
but disgrace and misery. That, or—and the thought 
of the alternative made her shudder—giving herself 
up to the man she hated, and buying his silence with 
her honor. 

The situation appalled her! 

Perhaps—she thought—it would be better to draw 
from the bank the few dollars she had in her name, 
write a letter of farewell explaining her reasons 
to her husband, and go to some small town in the 
West or South where she could be out of the reach 
of Benton. She should have no difficulty in finding 
work of some description which would enable her to 
keep body and soul together. Anything was better 
than to be disgraced by this man who had her in his 
clutches; but . . . there was her child . . . what of him ? 
Why should she exile herself because . . . 

213 


SOULS IN HELL 


214 

Suddenly , the sound of a revolver split the air! 

She sprang up, a new terror gripping her. “My 
God! what is that?” she gasped, throwing the curtains 
aside to look through the window. 

She heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel 
walk, and caught a glimpse of a man’s shadow dis¬ 
appearing around the corner of the house. 

Shaking with fear, she flew down the stairs and 
ran out on the porch. She met her brother coming 
up the stoop, the smoking revolver in his hand. 

“What . . . what’s the matter, Jack?” she cried in 
alarm; then, catching sight of the automatic, “God! 
Jack!” she panted, “what . . . have you . . . done?” 

Her brother eyed her curiously, and shrugged his 
shoulders. 

“Nothing, nothing! Tom’s nerves are on the blink 
tonight, and those darned cats he has been complaining 
of were annoying him ; so—I took a pot-shot at them. 
That’s all!”—significantly. 

His sister leaned against the column of the porch, 
and pressed her hand to her heart. Her breath came 
in short, quick gasps. 

“Oh! . . . My! . . . How you startled me!” 

Jack pretended not to notice her distress. Not 
wishing to add to her discomposure by his presence 
in the house, and perhaps at the same time run the 
risk of missing Benton, he held out the automatic 
to her. 

“This belongs to Tom, and I don’t want to disturb 
him now,” he explained. “Take it in with you, Kitty, 
and put it somewhere.” He gave a short laugh as 


SOULS IN HELL 


215 


he turned away. “I might be tempted to take a shot 
at some other animal!” he blurted; cursing himself a 
moment later for an inconsiderate fool for letting his 
tongue get the better of his discretion. His sister 
glanced at him, and mechanically took the revolver. 
She knew what “other animal” he referred to. Jack 
walked slowly down the steps, and on to the lawn to 
continue his vigil. 

His sister stood for a few moments staring blankly 
at the automatic in her hand; then, as though in a 
trance, her mind far away, quietly went into the 
house. Weak and exhausted with the reaction, she 
paused at the foot of the stairs. Benton’s resonant 
voice came through the half open door of the study. 
She heard him say: “And that reminds me of a cork¬ 
ing good yam!” 

With bated breath, and heart pumping wildly, con¬ 
sumed with anxiety to hear if they referred to her, 
she tried to catch the words. He related some jocular 
incident, apparently, for at the conclusion both he and 
Cogan laughed with evident enjoyment. 

His voice grated on her unstrung nerves. The cal¬ 
lous scoundrel! Cracking funny jokes while she was 
going through the torments of hell! Her whole be¬ 
ing revolted at his cold-bloodedness; and as she dragged 
herself up the stairs wearily, every nerve and every 
fibre crying out in pain, her head swimming with dizzi¬ 
ness, the peculiar strange feeling of detachment she 
had experienced the previous night, seemed to steal 
over and become a part of her. Such a fiend had no 
right to be on earth; to make life a hell for others! 


216 


SOULS IN HELL 


If God is a God of Justice (and the question came 
into her mind with a sceptical laugh), why did He 
allow this human hyena, this infamous villain, this 
devil in human form, to spin his web to ensnare her 
and hers? 

In an absent-minded way, she laid the revolver on 
the small table near the window and stood, staring with 
unseeing eyes at the moonlit landscape outside. The 
slight swaying of the tree-tops, the thin wisp of smoke 
ascending lazily from some house behind the trees, the 
sounds—vague and murmuring—of the placid night, 
all seemed to add to the feeling of detachment; she 
seemed to be of her body, but not in it. As if, in 
some inexplicable way, she was apart from and yet 
in touch with it. The thoughts of last night came 
crowding in upon her; coming even from the outside 
and from every corner. At first in \ague, uncon¬ 
nected whisperings—hints, suggestions and, now and 
then, mystic touchings on her skin; then, suddenly, 
they seemed to take definite forms and phrases, mar¬ 
shalling themselves in harrowing sequences of inexor¬ 
able logic, the spokesman of the evening before being 
heard above the other voices. 

“You know that he will stop at nothing to gain 
his ends ! You know, too, that if you do not do as he 
desires—become his mistress, his plaything, his drab— 
he will take his revenge on you with no more compunc¬ 
tion than he would have in killing a fly. All he cares 
about is your husband’s play, and after he gets that, 
why should he care about you or your home? And 
you, you will have to stand the blame, you will have 


SOULS IN HELL 


217 


1° pay the price; for with his damnable sophistry, he 
can play on your husband’s feelings as to make him 
believe he was doing him a favor in showing him the 
letters. The blackguard is clever and cunning enough! 
If he does . . . what will he the result?” 

In answer to some unbidden impulse, she turned to 
look on her child sleeping peacefully. 

“What will be the result?” reiterated the voice which 
seemed to be near her. 

The room filled with ghostly presences. Their prox¬ 
imity made her skin creep with waves of cold, elec¬ 
tric-like quivers. She could feel them pressing against 
her on all sides, each asking in tense whispers the 
same question: “ What will he the result?” 

Slowly turning again to the window, as if to seek 
the answer, her hand accidently touched the revolver, 
and her fingers mechanically closed on it. Absentmind- 
edly her eyes dropped to see what it was. With a 
quick catch of her breath, she unloosed her grasp of 
the weapon, and recoiled in repulsion. 

“Oh! . . . Good heavens! . . . Not that! . . . Oh! . . 
what am I thinking of?” she muttered fearfully at the 
trend of her thoughts. 

The child in its little crib, dreaming, restlessly 
moved, and lisped inarticulate babble in its sleep. The 
sound stabbed her to the quick! Adding to the poig¬ 
nancy of her despair, it brought her to the realization 
of the immediacy of her problem. 

“ What will he the result?” asked the insistent voice 
at her side. On all sides, from innumerable voices , came 
the same insistent question: “What will he the result?” 


SOULS IN HELL 


*18 

A hideou* picture began to unfold itself to her 
mind’s eye—as though in answer to the query. 

She saw Benton take out the package of letters 
from his pocket, untie the narrow faded ribbon, and 
give them, one by one, to Cogan to read; explaining, 
with an apologetic air of regret, that he was doing 
it merely because he considered it his duty—as a true 
friend. She saw her husband’s troubled look of won¬ 
derment; saw his face change—as he read the letters 
one after another—to disappointment, disgust, and, 
finally, to furious anger. 

The scene of her standing before him, shamefaced 
and with bowed head, listening to him violently de¬ 
nouncing her in scathing language, while Benton in the 
doorway gloated over her anguish—came vividly be¬ 
fore her mental vision. 

She could see her husband glaring in astonishment 
at her . . . hear him ask in a tense voice full of sup¬ 
pressed anger, “Did you write these letters?” . . . she 
could see herself trying to find words to explain, the 
basilisk gaze of Benton paralyzing her so that she was 
utterly unable to frame a sentence . . . “Did you 
write these letters?” . . . her husband yells the question 
at her! . . . she is on her knees ... in detached, broken 
words pleading for forgiveness . . . her child runs into 
the room . . . into her arms . . . her husband tears 
him away from her . . . she implores for mercy. “Do 
anything with me; send me away but . . . for God’s 
sake ... let me have my child!” . . . and his answer, 
cutting and cold, “Give my boy to you? To teach 
him to be a liar and a hypocrite? I’d sooner see him 


SOULS IN HELL 


219 


dead. Go! Leave this house before ... I harm you . 
. . You are not a fit mother for my child” . . . my 
child, not her child ! God in heaven, what should she 
do? ... She saw herself drag her cowering body to 
where her brother stood . . . she heard her agonized 
appeal to him to intercede for her . . . and . . . sa\* 
him turn away in loathing! . . . her brother, whom 
she loved so much, and who, she thought, loved her . . . 
the devilish, cynical grin of that fiend Benton mocking 
her . . . torturing her . . . driving her insane . . . 

The phantasmagoria stood out with a definite dis¬ 
tinctness in all its atrocious details; and, for the time 
being, she merged herself into the pictures evoked 
by her own disordered brain. 

Her fingers again closed on the revolver; and again 
the strange , cold feeling enveloped her. 

The uncanny stillness of the night was broken by 
Benton’s insufferable laugh. She shivered at the sound! 
He hadn’t laughed so loudly, so extravagantly before 
tonight! His irritating laugh, which seemed to fill 
every crevice of the room and every comer of the 
night, now bore a double meaning for her ... Now she 
knew why he laughed so outrageously . . .Now she 
knew the real significance of his merriment! The 
jokes he was relating to Cogan were merely an ex¬ 
cuse to cover the real cause of his hilarity. That was 
the real meaning of his laughter! He was gloating 
over her distress, her helplessness, her impotence, her 
inability to thwart him. That was the real joke that 
caused his merriment! No wonder he laughed! The 
devil. His cachinnations stung her like scorpions. Yes! 


220 


SOULS IN HELL 


Yes! The voice was right! He was a cancer with its 
foul tendrils probing and piercing her very heart— 
to batten on her life-blood . . . There was only one 
way, only one cure for a cancer—so the voice had 
said,—and the voice was right! Truly, there was 
but the one way to cut this cancerous, lecherous thing 
out of her life! 

“There is only one way!” whispered the voice. The 
room echoed with the whispered, “only one way!” 

Her fingers strayed over the revolver, feeling it 
with a delicate, caressing touch. How perfectly the 
handle fitted her hand! ... It seemed made expressly 
for her . . . The surface, criss-crossed with fine grooves, 
had, before, offended her super-sensitive touch; now 
she understood the utility of the grooves, and felt 
grateful for the better grip they afforded the damp 
skin of her hand. . . . And the trigger . . . how well 
and cunningly placed! A slight pull ... a trifling 
pressure . * . . no more . . . his noxious existence 
would be ended! . . . she would again be able to breathe 
freely, without having her heart in her mouth every 
time she heard his voice . . . How absurdly simple 
it was ... a slight pressure on the trigger and . . . 
she would be free! . . . . free from all his devil¬ 
ments, his insults ... his sneering, thin-lipped smile 
. . . his threats! She would be free to live her life 
as she did before he came to darken it with his vile¬ 
ness ; happy with her child and husband, free to conje 
and go . . . And ... it was easy . . . simple; 
no one would suspect her! Why should they sus¬ 
pect her? . . . There was no reason in the world why 



SOULS IN HELL 


221 


anybody should think she was the guilty one . . . 
They would find his body, and in all probability blame 
one of the numerous tramps that passed along that 
road on their way to New York ... Of course, they 
would never guess who did it; it would be a nine 
days wonder, and then forgotten like everything else. 
People were too busy worrying about their own affairs 
to trouble their heads with something which did not 
concern them. 

She looked at the weapon and smiled, inwardly 
chiding herself for being so foolish to feel an anti¬ 
pathy against it, wondering why it had seemed so 
repellent. 

The musical chimes of the clock in the parlor 
struck eleven. 

“Eleven o’clock!” warned the voice. “He will be 
going any moment now. Will you go through the 
hell again tomorrow, and other tomorrows, or . . . ? 
It is either he or you. He ... or your happiness. 
He ... or ... . your child ! 9 

Gripping the revolver firmly in her hand, she turned 
to glance at her child, her eyes gleaming with the 
reddish glint of insanity. Holding the weapon out 
at arm’s length, she noted in a peculiar, impersonal 
way that her hand was steady, and without a tremor 
in the muscles. A sense of peace and calm pervaded 
her whole being; and her disordered mind assured her 
that she would be doing a noble act by ridding the 
world of this incubus — this vile Benton. She was 
but the favored instrument used by Justice to cut his 


222 


SOULS IN HELL 


career short, and so save Womanhood from his devilish 
machinations! 

Opening her wardrobe, she took out a dark colored 
cloak and put it on, fastening it at her throat. 
Unbuttoning her waist, she carefully hid the revolver 
in her bosom; then, bending over the crib in which 
her child lay sleeping, she kissed him tenderly, whis¬ 
pering : 

“For you! It is for you , Mumsie’s thweetheart!” 

She laughed insanely as she imitated the child’s 
lisp. 

“They shan’t take you away from me!” 

He moved uneasily in his sleep , and gave a little 
sigh. 

Closing the door of the bedroom, she crept softly 
down the stairs; every step echoing the “For you, 
thweetheart!” which ran through her fevered brain. 
She silently opened the front door and peeped out. 

Going noiselessly down the stoop, then on to the 
lawn, she gained the friendly shadows of the tall 
shrubbery leading to the gate. 

Closing the gate quietly behind her, she walked 
quickly until she came to a large tree at the road¬ 
side, and whose overhanging branches threw a welcome 
darkness in which she could wait, unseen, for her 
enemy. 


SOULS IN HELL 


223 


At the side of the house where he was walking 
slowly, Jack heard the moving of chairs in the study, 
informing him that Benton was about to leave for the 
city. He leaned against the corner, hidden by the 
shadow, and, a few minutes later, saw to his great 
relief the actor going down the stoop. 

“You’ve got a lovely night for your walk,” he heard 
his brother-in-law say. “Good luck!” 

“Good night, Cogan,” the actor replied with a 
wave of his gloves. “I’ll be down tomorrow evening 
to finish up.” 

“You may, and . . . perhaps . . . you may not!” 
muttered Jack. “That all depends.” 

The actor strode down the path, while Cogan lin¬ 
gered on the porch, puffing at his cigar and en¬ 
joying the moonlit scene. 

Jack waited impatiently. He heard the gate shut 
with a loud clang when Benton slammed it behind 
him. 

“Durn you, Tom; I wish you’d go in”—he apos¬ 
trophized the editor in a low grumbling voice. “I’ll 
have to sprint to catch the cuss. I should have gone 
outside the gate to wait for him.” 

Cogan’s mind was still on his play; for, with a sigh 
of pride, he turned and entered the house to look over 
his evening’s work while he finished smoking his cigar. 

Immediately the door was closed, Jack Waller 
dashed down the path in pursuit of the actor. 


XIX 


Mrs. Cogan’s pulse quickened when she saw Ben¬ 
ton coming! 

As he stepped out of the shadows thrown by the 
trees at the edge of the road into the garish moon¬ 
light, she marked with keen satisfaction that her hand 
holding the revolver was about the right height, and 
all she had to do was press the trigger. In a quite 
impersonal way, she again noticed, too, that her 
hand was perfectly steady and under her control. 

“It is very simple,” said the voice . “A child could 
do it!” 

The subtle reference to a “child” sent her thoughts 
back to her own child—her beloved boy. She set her 
lips tighter! 

When he was almost abreast of her, she bent her 
head slightly to look along the barrel of the auto¬ 
matic resting against the trunk of the tree—to make 
sure of her aim. He swung out of the mottled shadow 
and into her field of vision; the sight on the end of the 
barrel showed dark against the white of his shirt-front. 

The moment had cornel 

“Yes—now!” commanded the voice in answer to her 
unspoken question. 


224 


SOULS IN HELL 


225 

She was about to press the trigger, in accordance 
with the command of the impersonal entity which 
she imagined stood at her side, when a large touring 
automobile bounded past; loudly sounding a warning 
signal preparatory to turning the sharp corner a few 
yards away. 

The unexpected and sudden raucous croak of the 
horn startled her, and she instinctively threw a swift 
glance over her shoulder. The next moment, the car 
had disappeared around the bend of the road, and 
Benton had passed her, and was some steps away. 

Chagrined at the interruption and the loss of her 
opportunity, she stood, for a few seconds, dumb¬ 
founded and irresolute; then impulsively ran under 
the shadowing trees to overtake the actor, who, by thi3 
time, had crossed the road and disappeared round 
the bend. 

She, also, cut across the road to shorten the inter¬ 
vening distance; her mind intent on the one thing 
she had set out to do. 


J* 


Farther up the road, her brother was coming—run¬ 
ning at an easy lope. 

Suddenly , a shot rang out—down the road — ahead 
of him! 

Recognizing the sound and startled by its sudden¬ 
ness, he stopped; then redoubled his speed, wonder¬ 
ing what the sound foreboded. 


226 


SOULS IN HELL 


Swinging round the sharp corner, he saw a sight 
that made him swerve abruptly to the side path, and 
hide in the shadow of a tree. 

Not fifty feet away, in the middle of the white road, 
lay the body of a man; the dark form of a cloaked 
woman bending over him. 

A vague fear gripped him! His body went cold, 
and his hands trembled. Something about the woman 
silhouetted against the whiteness of the road seemed 
strangely familiar. His breath came in short gasps! 
While he gazed, open-mouthed and stupified, the 
woman rose to her feet, and, throwing a quick glance 
down the road, started running toward him. 

Running rapidly, she passed him as he crouched 
close to the tree to avoid being seen. He caught 
a glimpse of her white face as she flew past. 

It was his sister, Kitty, with a small package in her 
hand! 

A cold sweat beading his forehead, he stared at 
her retreating figure until she was lost in the deep 
shadows of the pathway; then ran quickly to the 
prostrate figure on the road. 

It was Benton, with a bidlet hole in his temple — 
dead! 

He stooped beside the body, and pushed his hand 
into the inside pocket of the coat which was thrown 
open. It was empty! The package of letters was 
gone ! 

“Kitty! Kitty! Poor Kitty! May God forgive 
her!” he murmured huskily. 

The glint of steel on the ground near the out- 


SOULS IN HELL 


227 


stretched arm of the dead actor caught his eye. He 
picked up the automatic and recognized the initials— 
T. C. —cut in the handle. He shuddered when he saw 
that it was the same revolver he had given into her 
hand earlier in the evening. 

“I must take care of it, otherwise—” His lips set 
hard at the thoughts of what might happen. He 
slipped the gun into his pocket. 

“I should have kept it, and not put temptation her 
way by giving it to her,” he accused himself bitterly. 
“My! . . . I didn’t dream it was as bad as all that!” 
He looked down at the dead man’s face, and shook 
his head regretfully. “You certainly must have been 
a rotter, to hound her into doing this!” 

A large automobile coming from down the road 
was almost upon him before he heard the whirr of its 
motor. It did not enter his mind to run to the friendly 
shadows to try to conceal himself; indeed, he did not 
have the opportunity. He stood upright as the 
machine came to a stop near the body, and two men 
leaped out and ran to him. 

“What has happened here? I am the Prosecuting 
Attorney of this County!” the speaker announced. 
Jack bowed slightly to him. His companion at that 
moment joined them. He was Mr. Warren, a business 
man of the town. 

“Hullo, Mr. Waller,” he cried, recognizing Jack, 
and shaking hands with him. “What’s the trouble 
here ?” 

“Why . . uh . . . I was . . . walking down the 
road when I heard ... a shot . . . I’ve only just ar- 


228 


SOULS IN HELL 


rived, and I found the body just as you see it,” he 
told the Prosecutor who was keenly observing him. 

“Did you see anyone near here?” the official asked. 

Jack hesitated, and shook his head. “No . . . no¬ 
body !” 

He had paused for only the fraction of a second 
before giving his answer, but the quick ear of the 
Prosecutor detected it. 

“Do you usually take walks without wearing your 
hat?” 

The question surprised Waller. So intent had he 
been on watching for the actor, he had not noticed 
that his head had no covering; his life out in the 
open had been such that he had not felt the need. He 
put his hand to his head to confirm the Prosecutor’s 
question. For the instant, he was thrown off his 
guard. The Attorney took advantage of it to “frisk” 
him—to slide his hands quickly over his pockets. 
Striking something hard in the right-hand pocket, 
he inserted his hand, and pulled out the automatic. 
Quickly running his finger over the magazine, he dis¬ 
covered that two bullets were missing. He held it up 
for Jack to see. 

“Is this yours?” he asked grimly. 

Jack immediately took in the situation. The damn- 
inng evidence of the revolver was against him! He was 
silent. 

“Sorry, Mr. Waller, if that’s your name,” the 
officer said curtly; “but I have to place you under 
arrest.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


229 


“Why — ” Jack blurted, taken by surprise; then — 
the thought of his sister’s danger flashing into his 
mind—he drew himself up stiffly. “All right, sir,” he 
replied in a tense voice; “but I am innocent!” 

“What’s that? You . . . you are arresting Mr. 
Waller?” inquired Waren, who with the chauffeur had 
been examining the dead body. “Oh! . . . why, Clark, 
that’s . . . that’s absurd ... to suspect him!” 

“I have just found the gun on him, Mr. Warren,” 
was the cold reply. 

Warren stared in amazement at Jack’s set face. 
“My God! Waller! Is that true?” 

Words of denial came welling up to Jack’s lips, 
but, with an effort, he restrained himself and spoke 
to Clark, the Prosecutor. 

“May I help to put the body in the car? You’ll 
want to take it with you, I suppose.” 

The official looked keenly at him, trying to guess 
the reason for the proffered aid. 

“He is rather heavy for these two,” he explained, 
indicating the youthful chauffeur and the not very 
athletic looking Mr. Warren; “for, of course, you 
will want to keep an eye on me” with a tinge of sar¬ 
casm in his voice. 

“Very well,” came the curt reply. 

Between them, they lifted Benton’s body onto the 
rear seat of the car. 

“Now sit alongside the driver, Mr. Waller,” com¬ 
manded the Prosecutor; “and please remember I’ve 
got the drop on you.” 

Jack gave a little nod and took his place on the 


230 


SOULS IN HELL 


front seat. The others got in the car, and soon they 
were speeding toward the local Police Station, each 
occupied with their own thoughts. 


J* 


Hidden by the shadows, Mrs. Cogan crept silently 
into the house. The light coming from the window 
of the study indicated that her husband was still there 
and working on his play, so she had no fear of meet¬ 
ing him. Cautiously tip-toeing up the stairs, avoiding 
as if by instinct the places which would give out a 
tell-tale creak, she noiselessly made her way to her 
bedroom. 

Pushing the precious package of letters under the 
mattress of her bed, she hurriedly pulled off her cloak, 
and hung it in its place in the wardrobe. Feeling in 
the bosom of her waist for the revolver, and not find¬ 
ing it there, she tried to recollect what she had done 
with it, but without success. 

Perplexed, she endeavored to pierce the blank that 
surrounded her memory, and tried to remember her 
actions after she had opened his coat, and taken the 
letters out of the pocket. She remembered that! The 
recollection of her running until the gate loomed up 
in front of her came back in a dim, hazy way. But 
what had become of the gun . . . she could not recall. 
It did not trouble her very much, for—she had the 
letters! And that was the main thing. With a scorn- 


SOULS IN HELL 


231 

ful pout, as though the matter was of little impor¬ 
tance, she dismissed it from her mind, for ... at last 
she was safe! No more of that hell for her; that was 
certain at all events. She could breathe now without 
having her heart jump into her mouth every time he 
came into her mind. 

As the thoughts of her freedom raced gladly 
through her brain, she undid her waist and skirt, took 
them off, and threw them over the back of a chair. 
The thought of the letters being in her possession 
crowded everything else out of her mind. She won¬ 
dered if she dared risk reading them now, and then, 
after reading them, destroy them; or had she better 
wait until her husband retired for the night. 

“Yes, perhaps that is best. I’ll wait!” she finally 
concluded. “Seeing the light here, he may come in to 
see why I wasn’t asleep.” 

She put her dressing gown on, and, after pulling 
down the shades, turned on the electric light near 
her dressing table. 

A muffled sigh from the crib drew her attention 
to the child sleeping peacefully; its little arm resting 
on the pillow, the chubby pink fingers hidden in the 
golden curls. A wave of intense mother-love swept 
through her. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” she cooed 
softly to her loved one on the bed. “It’s done, and 
now we are safe, darling!” She smiled contentedly 
as she sat down near the light and reached for a 
magazine on the small table by the window. ‘If he 
comes in’—she thought, meaning her husband—‘I 
can pretend to be reading; then when he falls asleep I 


232 


SOULS IN HELL 


. . .” She did not finish the sentence. Her ear 
caught the ringing of the telephone bell downstairs. 

“Who can that be . . . at this time of night?” she 
muttered, slightly annoyed at the sound interrupting 
her thoughts. 

Through the closed door of her room came, faintly, 
the big tones of her husband’s voice answering the 
call; then, ages after—so it seemed to her, for her 
thoughts were centred on the spot under the large 
pink blossom on the coverlet—she heard him rushing 
up the stairs. 

“Kitty!” he cried, throwing the door open, “some¬ 
thing terrible has happened! Benton—Benton is 
dead!” 

“Is he?” she asked in a tone of indifference, looking 
up from her magazine. 

“Yes!” he gasped, wiping the sweat off his fore¬ 
head. “He was found ... on the road . . . murdered!” 

“Murdered?” she asked, with an air of being bored 
by information that did not interest her. 

“Yes! Murdered!” he repeated. “And . . . oh, 
my God! Jack has been arrested!” 

“What!” she exclaimed, suddenly shocked into life. 
“Jack? Arrested?” She sprang to her feet, letting 
the magazine fall to the floor. 

Cogan leaned weakly against the door-frame and 
nodded, “Yes.” 

“For what?” she demanded, wonderingly. 

“They found him there . . . with my gun in his 
pocket . . . and . . . they took him to the station 
house,” he stammered. “Good God! why did he do it?” 


SOULS IN HELL 


233 


He bowed his head, and closed his eyes, trying to 
steady himself. 

Her mind went back to the scene on the road. 
‘They found the gun in his pocket! How did it get 
there? I must have dropped it somewhere. But how 
did he happen to find it?’ The questions, speeding 
through her mind, puzzled her. Occupied with her 
thoughts, she gazed blankly at her husband. 

“Get your clothes on, Kitty,” he said huskily, rais¬ 
ing his head. “We’ll go down to the station. They 
are sending a machine for us.” 

Slowly, he turned and went down the stairs. The 
shock had unnerved him, and he shook like a leaf. 
He had noticed that his wife had heard the dreadful 
news with a calmness that was unlike her usual manner, 
but he put it down to her being numbed by the ab¬ 
ruptness of the announcement. 

Opening the front door, he went out on the porch 
to wait for her. Soon, she came down fully dressed, 
and as she shut the door behind her, the gate swung 
open with a clang, and Mr. Warren came up the gar¬ 
den path. 

Cogan ran down the steps to meet him; on his 
tongue the question: “Warren, what is this dreadful 
thing that’s happened?” 

“I am awfully sorry, Cogan, but it looks damned 
bad for your brother-in-law! I’ll tell you all about 
it in the car,” he added, catching sight of Mrs. Cogan 
coming down the stoop. 


XX. 


If, when bending over the “dead” body of Benton, 
searching for the package of letters, Mrs. Cogan had 
been endowed with the clairvoyant faculty, she would 
have witnessed one of life’s greatest mysteries; the 
release of a soul —the soul of Benton. 

A soul who—to a seer with clairvoyant vision—was 
a whirling mass of vapor-like currents of a muddy, 
reddish hue mixed with strata of grayish-green; the 
whole being slashed through and through with vivid 
flashes of a vibrant, crimsoned scarlet. The wraith¬ 
like shape rose out of the body lying inert on the 
ground, and as it hovered a few feet above the corpse, 
gradually grew more dense, and took on the form of a 
human figure; a tenuous facsimile, even to the clothes, 
of the man who only a few instants before had been 
walking down the road. 

It was Benton! The real Benton, more alive now 
than when he occupied his physical body, for he was 
freed from the heavy encumbrance of bones and flesh 
he had been so proud of, and to which he had devoted 
so much of his time; feeding, bathing, and adorning 
it with jewels and fine clothing for the admiration 
and envy of his fellow-humans. 

234 


SOULS IN HELL 


235 


A 9 is usual in most cases of sudden death (from 
which—as the Prayer Book hath it—“May the good 
Lord deliver us!”), and when the soul is suddenly 
hurled out of its body, Benton was dazed and be¬ 
wildered. He had felt some kind of a shock which, 
although it had been a painless one, left him stunned 
and benumbed. He felt as he remembered feeling at 
the end of a minor operation he had undergone in a 
hospital, when he was recovering from the influence of 
the ether he had inhaled. Everything around him was 
undefined and out of focus, and, apparently, in motion; 
the road and landscape appearing like a dissolving 
view thrown on billowy masses of smoke. 

“Why . . . what the devil ... is the matter?” he 
muttered. “My head feels . . . queer! Like a combin¬ 
ation of a . . . rotten bilious attack or sea-sickness . . 
Gad! Whew! . . . I’m . . . so . . . dizzy—” 

Shaking his head, and blinking his eyes in the en¬ 
deavor to clear his sense of vision, he saw a soft, 
brilliant radiance shining at his side. He turned to 
look at the phenomenon. It was an oval shape of ex¬ 
quisite, white brilliance, from which emanated the 
tremulous “radiance”—bits of many-hued tints; a 
glory of living light; an aura of palpitating loveli¬ 
ness, resplendent with diaphanous effulgence. A Voice , 
soft and golden, wdiich seemed to fill the whole Uni¬ 
verse with its volume, came from the Presence within 
the radiance. 

“You wish to know what has happened?” 

Benton strained his powers of vision to the utmost, 


236 


SOULS IN HELL 


endeavoring to pierce the shimmering resplendence, 
to see from whence the Voice came. 

“Who or what are you?” he asked, hardly believing 
his senses. 

“I am a Helper,” announced the Voice . “I come 
to those who need help.” 

Benton shaded his eyes with his hands, trying to 
discover the meaning of the Vision; but his dulled 
sight was unequal to the task. 

“Something has happened; but damned if I know 
what? Perhaps you can tell me.” 

“Yes! Something has happened; something of very 
great importance to you. You are what the dwellers 
on the planet of sorrow—Earth— call . . . dead!” 

“Faugh!” exploded the actor in a tone of dis¬ 
dain. 

“You have been suddenly thrust out of your body . . 
killed!” 

He gave a short laugh of scorn. “Don’t be a damn 
fool! If that’s all you can tell me — ” 

“Try to remember,” the Voice advised him gently. 

A glimmer of a vague memory like the detached 
and blurred fragments of a dream seeped up to the 
surface of his consciousness. Slowly, he raised his 
hand to his temple, and touched the bullet-hole; it was 
wet and sticky! Astonished, he looked at his fingers. 
They were smeared with clotted blood! Amazed — for 
his thought-processes were still benumbed — he glanced 
at his clothes. There were his evening suit, his over¬ 
coat, his immaculate patent-leather shoes, his diamond 


SOULS IN HELL 


237 


rings! An expression of disgust at being—as he 
thought—fooled so easily spread over his face. 

“You do not believe that you have passed the 
portals of Death.” 

“Oh, hell! You must think I am a damn fool,” 'he 
snorted. u Do dead men wear clothes?” he demanded 
scornfully. 

“Yes, strange though it may seem to you, they do!” 

“And I am dead, am I?” inquired the actor, in a 
tone of sarcasm. 

“Come with me, and prove it for yourself,” said the 
Helper, pityingly. 

Benton gave a gesture of annoyance. “Oh, be 
off with you; I am not an idiot!” he muttered testily. 
“Better attend to your own affairs—if you have any.” 

The radiance faded away. It was no longer visible! 

Cursing himself for being so foolish as to admit the 
possibility of the Vision being a reality, Benton forced 
all his will-power to bear on his numbed sense of 
sight, and to clear away the film which seemed to 
cloud his eyes. He had to catch the last train, or . . . 
“but where the devil is the road?” he muttered angrily, 
concentrating his attention on the vague, gray mist¬ 
iness surrounding him. His foot felt for the hard 
road which had been there only a few minutes ago. 

His foot met with no resistance! 

“Why . . . what the devil has become of it? And 
. . . what is this stuff under foot? ... It feels like . .” 

He was at a loss for a simile. So far as he could 
make out, he was in a thick, fog-like atmosphere which 
appeared to be more like a viscuous fluid than air. 


238 


SOULS IN HELL 


He couldn’t be blind—he argued, for, even if the road 
was invisible, he could see the fog—even if not very 
clearly; but ... he was helpless. The wall of fog 
which enveloped him seemed impenetrable! He dared 
not move to the left or to the right; to go forward 
or backward. 

“Well ... I seem to be stuck here. Perhaps I 
should have gone with him, whoever he was,” he mut¬ 
tered. Then, as he recalled the vision of the One 
who called Himself a “Helper” he wondered who He 
could be. 

“Hell! It’s only a figment of the imagination. I 
must be seeing things!” 

The fog seemed to close in on him; and, as it 
palpitated past him with a sinuous motion, now and 
again touched him. The contact almost paralyzed 
him! 

It was clammy , slimy , and cold! 

Dimly he saw the mass wind in and out with a 
weird, snake-like writhe. He watched the undulating 
movement—fascinated. 

The gray fog lay, apparently, in strata which 
whirled in and out of each other as they revolved 
around him in a vertiginous pulsation, and with an 
exasperating unctuousness. His eyes gradually focus¬ 
sing on the slimy wall of gray, he observed that 
patches scaled off the mass, leaving lighter toned spots 
of a livid hue. The surfaces of the spots swelled out— 
bubble-shaped, then burst, exposing a ferment of pes¬ 
tilent feculence. 

Spellbound, Benton felt himself being drawn by 


SOULS IN HELL 


239 


some strange attractive power toward the abominable 
foulness which now emitted a horrible, putrid stench 
of an indescribable odor that made him gasp. Strug¬ 
gling frantically to keep from being engulfed in the 
gaping vortex of filth, he saw that he was being 
drawn inexorably into the obscene maw; or . . . God 
in heaven! . . . was it coming closer to him? 

He was palsied with terror when his horrible situ¬ 
ation broke in on his dulled senses; when he realized 
that the undulating gray mass of suppuration was 
nearer to him, almost touching him on all sides, and 
that the whole fog was a revolving mass of livid pu¬ 
tridity ! 

An unspoken cry for help came from his parted 
lips. 

The grayness disappeared, and the soft, mellow 
Radiance once more shone around him. 

“You called. I have come. Will you accompany 
me now?” asked the Voice. 

The golden tones soothed Benton with a healing 
calm. 

“Yes! Yes!” he almost shrieked. “Anything but 
. . . this!” 

To the distracted actor it seemed as if an arm of 
Power upheld and guarded him as he floated by the 
side of the Helper in a halo of shimmering light. 


XXI 


During the journey in the car from Cogan’s house 
to the Police Station, Mr. Warren told what he knew 
of the finding of the actor’s body. 

“I met Clark a little this side of Arnold’s place,” 
he told Cogan. Turning to Mrs. Cogan sitting on 
the front seat with her handkerchief to her mouth, 
“Clark is the new Prosecuting Attorney,”—he ex¬ 
plained. “I stopped to say ‘howdy’ to him. We were 
talking . . . oh . . . perhaps five minutes or so, when 
we heard a noise like a rifle or pistol shot. ‘That 
sounds like a gun,’ said Clark, and he turned to his 
chauffeur and asked him if he had heard it. He said 
‘yes, sounded up the road somewheres.’ ‘I’d better in¬ 
vestigate,’ said Clark to me; ‘want to come along’? 
I thought perhaps someone was having trouble with 
tramps, so I jumped in his car, and the driver 
speeded her up for all she was worth.” 

Mrs. Cogan leaned back against the cushion, and 
closed her eyes. 

“When we came round the bend,—you know that 
sharp turn below your place,” . . . Cogan nodded in 
answer . . . “well, we nearly run into two men; one of 
them was lying on the road, and the other one was 
240 


SOULS IN HELL 


241 


bending over him. The driver—the chap that’s driv¬ 
ing us now—stopped the car just in the nick of time, 
—if he hadn’t, we’d have run over them,—and just 
as we came to a standstill, jour brother-in-law stood 
up. He was the one which was bending over the other 
one. Clark was nearest and jumped out first; then 
I got out and saw who it was—Waller, I mean.” 

Mrs. Cogan’s eyes opened slightly. She was listen¬ 
ing intently. 

“I shook hands with Waller, and stooped over to 
see who the man on the ground was. The chauffeur 
was ahead of me, and as I got to the body he said 
to Clark: ‘The man’s dead, sir. Got a bullet-hole 
in his temple.’ ” 

Cogan drew a deep breath. “What did Ja . . er . . 
my brother-in-law say? Did he say anything?” 

“I didn’t hear all he said because I was examining 
the man to see if he was dead or only wounded,” 
Warren replied. “When I asked him what had hap¬ 
pened, he shut up like a clam. Then Clark told him 
he was under arrest. It knocked me all of a heap!” 

“But didn’t he say anything?” Cogan persisted anx¬ 
iously. 

“Oh, yes! When Clark found the gun in his 
pocket, he said he was innocent,” replied Warren; 
“and when we got down to the station house, he told 
us the man’s name was Benton—I think that’s the 
name—and that we’d better phone to you.” 

Cogan stared blankly in front of him, not knowing 
what to say. What could he say or think? Every¬ 
thing was plain enough! The gun—his gun which he 


242 


SOULS IN HELL 


had given him earlier in the evening to fire at the 
} T owling cats—was found in his pocket; and he re¬ 
called with a sad heart, the evening of the actor’s 
first visit, when Jack had said he would as soon put 
a bullet in his hide as talk to him! And now, he had 
put a bullet in him! Jack’s experiences at the “front” 
must have made him callous and coldblooded. He 
had seen so many killed that evidently he held human 
life very cheap. Cogan’s spirit was crushed! Why 
hadn’t he been successful in getting them to shake 
hands, and to forget that trifling misunderstanding 
on board ship? It would have avoided all this trouble. 
Benton was gentleman enough to be willing to meet 
him half way, but . . . well, there must be something 
radically wrong with Jack; something lacking and un¬ 
known in his character to ... to commit such a 
shocking crime! 

Cogan glanced at his wife from under his eyebrows. 
She was motionless but for the swaying of the auto¬ 
mobile, huddled in the corner of the seat, hiding her 
face in her handkerchief. ‘Poor Kitty! Poor girl!’ 
—he thought. ‘She will never get over it!’ 

The car came to a stop in front of the Police 
Station. 

“Well . . . here we are,” said Warren. 

They went up the steps, and entered the Sta¬ 
tion; the chauffeur following a few feet behind. 

Jack was sitting on a bench against the wall; his 
arms folded, his eyes staring at the floor. He stood 
up when the party entered. Mrs. Cogan rushed past 


SOULS IN HELL 


£43 


her husband and threw her arms around her brother’s 
neck; tears streaming down her cheeks. 

“Oh, Jack! Jack!” she wailed, brokenly. 

He smiled wanly, and caressed her hair. “Keep 
silent, Kitty!” he whispered under cover of her em¬ 
brace. “For the sake of your child , don't say any¬ 
thing! Do you understand? This is a very serious 
business; so say absolutely nothing. Remember now!” 
he commanded sternly. 

Clark, the Prosecuting Attorney, had beckoned to 
Cogan when he came in, and had taken him to 
where the Police Captain on duty for the night was 
sitting. 

“Look at that, carefully, Mr. Cogan,” he said, 
giving him the revolver. 

The editor took the automatic and glanced at the 
stock; he saw his own initials. His face suddenly 
paled as he recognized the familiar marks. 

“There’s no need of asking; I can see it belongs 
to you,” said Clark, with a definite nod. 

The editor looked sorrowfully at him, and returned 
the weapon. “I see no reason why I should deny 
it,” he gulped. “It’s mine.” 

The Prosecutor grasped his arm. “You and your 
wife have my sincere sympathy. I wish it had not 
happened here; but . . . you understand, I have to do 
my duty.” 

The editor nodded dejectedly; then walked over to 
where his brother-in-law was standing. Reaching over 
his wife’s shaking figure, he put his hands on Jack’s 
shoulders, and looked at him questioningly. As if she 


244 


SOULS IN HELL 


knew it was her husband who stood behind her, Mrs. 
Cogan tightened her embrace, and buried her face on 
her brother’s breast. 

Jack looked at Cogan as though his thoughts 
were far away,—as indeed they were. 

The room had, for the moment, been blotted out, 
and, in its place, unfolded the vision of that ancient 
time when he and his brother were in the trench, his 
brother sorely wounded lying on the ground, his 
life-blood staining the wet earth; while he, whom his 
brother had rescued, stood watching him with tearful 
eyes. Now he understood the full meaning of the 
vision, and guessed that the reason it had been shown 
him, when in the trench in France, was to prepare 
his mind for the payment of that ancient debt when 
the payment was required of him. And . . . the time 
for that payment had come! The vision faded, and 
in its place were Cogan’s questioning eyes. 

Jack gave no sign; but a light of resolve shone in 
his eyes. 

“Do you want to say anything, Jack?” Cogan 
asked, brokenly. “Is there anything I can do for 
you ?” 

“Not now, Tom ; not tonight,” he replied. “Tomor¬ 
row, if you can spare a few minutes to come and see 
me.” 

“All right, old man,” said Cogan, having hard work 
to keep his tears back. 

Jack motioned, asking him to take Mrs. Cogan 
away. 

“Come, girlie,” Cogan said with a sigh. He touched 


SOULS IN HELL 


245 


her on the shoulder; she clung closer to her brother. 
The Captain and the Prosecutor came to the little 
group. 

“I am sorry, Mrs. Cogan,” Clark said gently; “but 
we have to do our duty, you know.” 

Her brother grasped her arms, and coaxed her to 
loosen her hands. “Come, sis,” he said persuasively, 
patting her on her shoulders, “you mustn’t take it so 
hard.” 

A torrent of tears coursed down her cheeks, and 
her bosom heaved spasmodically as she moaned: “Oh, 
Jack! Jack! What will come of all this?” 

Holding her face between his hands so that he 
could look into her eyes, he whispered, “Don’t worry 
about me; I have been in the Valley of Death before!” 
He kissed her forehead. “It will come out all right, 
old girl,” he added in a louder tone. 

He pushed her gently into her husband’s arms, 
and turned to the officers. “I am ready, gentlemen.” 

The two policemen standing near, stepped up to 
him. 

“Good night, Tom. Good night, sis,” he called 
over his shoulder as he went through the doorway—a 
prisoner. 

“Good night, Jack,” replied Cogan. “I’ll see you 
in the morning.” His sister, the tears coursing down 
her cheeks, waved her hand dumbly. She sank heavily 
onto the bench, and bowed her head on the rail at the 
back; thinking her own thoughts while her husband 
listened to Clark’s account of the affair. 


246 


SOULS IN HELL 


jt 


Unseen by those in the room, two other visitors ap¬ 
peared on the scene,—the Helper and the actor. 

Benton, by virtue of the help given him by the One 
at his side, saw with clear vision the group near the 
Captain’s desk; and recognizing Cogan, rushed up 
to him with a glad cry of relief, overjoyed to see the 
familiar face, and to find that he had awakened from 
what he imagined was a dream or hallucination, and 
had come back to his normal life again. 

“Gad! but I am glad to see you again, old fellow!” 
he cried. “Do you know, I have had the queerest, 
rottenest experience I ever went through! After I 
left your house, on my way to the train, suddenly 
everything got confused, just as if—” 

He stopped short and stared at the editor who, 
paying no attention to him, was listening intently to 
Clark’s recital. 

“Say, Cogan,” he said peevishly, trying to shake 
the editor’s shoulder, “what is the matter? Cannot 
you listen to me for a moment?” He raised his voice 
querulously. 

Receiving no answer, he went to the front of Cogan 
and looked at his face. 

“You aren’t asleep, I can see that!” he snapped. 

He touched the editor’s cheek to attract his atten¬ 
tion. His hand passed through Cogan’s face in a 


SOULS IN HELL 


24 7 

most inexplicable manner; and, trying to gain his no¬ 
tice by striking his face and body lightly, he saw in 
amazement that his efforts had no effect. Wondering 
if he was going insane, he addressed himself to the 
Prosecutor. 

“Pardon me a moment, won’t you? I want to 
ask you a question. Are you really there—talking, or 
am I dreaming?” 

Clark of course—not being clairvoyant—did not 
see him, so took no notice of him but went on with 
his narrative to Cogan. 

Benton was astounded, and not knowing what to 
make of it, slowly turned his head. He caught sight 
of Mrs. Cogan huddled at the end of the bench. 
Apparently through no effort of his own, he now 
stood beside her. 

“Forgive me for troubling you, but you will tell 
me, I feel sure,” he said in his most urbane manner ; 
“if only for the sake of old times. Are you sitting 
there, or am I dreaming?” 

With her Irish, psychic temperament, and her 
nerves strained to a high pitch of tension, Mrs. 
Cogan was more than ordinarily sensitive. She felt 
a cold wave envelope her; and as though she sensed 
something inimical to her, she shivered. 

“My goodness,” she thought; “somebody’s creeping 
over my grave!” 

She sat up and glanced at her husband who had 
risen from his chair. Clark had told him all he knew 
of the murder, and there was nothing more that could 
be done for the present. Now, the best thing they 


248 


SOULS IN HELL 


could do was to return sorrowfully to their home, and 
await the coming of the morrow. 

“Come, Kitty,” called Cogan, his voice heavy with 
sorrow; “let us go. We cannot do anything more 
tonight.” 

Benton, exasperated at being ignored, stood in 
front of her and tried to forcibly detain her; but she 
walked through him as if he were non-existent. She 
shivered with a cold chill down her spine as she 
passed him. The actor shouted at them wrathfully 
when he saw they took no notice of him. 

“What’s come over you people? Can’t you hear 
me? God knows I am yelling loud enough!” 

He found himself in the centre of the group. The 
Prosecutor was shaking hands with Cogan, and giving 
him advice regarding the law. Benton in a passion 
dashed his fist down on their clasped hands. 

“Damn it!” he yelled. “I’ll make you listen to me!” 

Their hands passed through his -fist as a solid goes 
through vapor! 

He stared at them, amazed, as they went slowly to 
the door and passed out into the night. 

Stricken with a nameless fear, he shook with ter¬ 
ror at the thought that perhaps, after all, the Help¬ 
er’s assertion was true. That he had—astounding 
though the idea might be—passed from the earth- 
world into the great Beyond with all its unfathomed 
mysteries; mysteries unknown to him, which filled him 
with apprehension for what the future held for him. 

The radiance shone at his side. 

Benton glared at the white Brilliance, dumbfounded! 


XXII. 


One of the perplexing problems of those whose work 
—and privilege—is to welcome the (so-called) dead 
into the next sphere of activity have to contend with, 
is the unbelief of the newcomers. 

They who have perhaps spent days, weeks, or even 
months on a sick-bed of suffering, and now finding 
themselves free from pain, will not, as a rule, believe 
that they have crossed the “borderland,” and imagine 
that they have regained their physical health and 
vigor. 

Those who are charged with this work, ofttimes 
have to display a great deal of ingenuity in devising 
methods with which they can convince the new arrival 
that he—or she—has really passed from the earth- 
world into the next. 

The average person who accepts the teaching of a 
future life has an idea that he will go to a place 
of which he has only the vaguest conception; a heaven 
made up of gold, diamonds, rubies, pearls, sapphires, 
and other precious stones; beings wearing nightshirts 
and with birds’ wings growing on their shoulder- 
blades, blowing golden trumpets to swell the chorus 
of the “saved” who, sitting on clouds, are playing 
249 


250 


SOULS IN HELL 


harps and singing “Allelulia” during a continuous day 
(there is no night) which lasts for all eternity. Such 
a naive idea comes, possibly, from taking literally the 
attempts of mystics to describe the indescribable with 
physical plane language, and by using physical plane 
imagery; but those who have had their consciousness 
raised to the point where they can cognize the ‘‘heav¬ 
en-world,” know that all efforts to picture to others— 
not so fortunate as themselves—the glory and beauty 
of the heaven-world must necessarily result in fail¬ 
ure; for its transcendent grandeur cannot be imaged 
—cannot be even suggested by means of physical plane 
language, however expressive. 

Benton having thought this world the only one, 
had no ideas of any sort regarding a future life. When 
he had heard references to the possibility of another 
life after death, he had either refused to consider 
them, or had dismissed them with a cynical, “I should 
worry!” Now, when the awful possibility of the Help¬ 
er’s words being true grew clearer in his consciousness, 
he was utterly bewildered. 

During the interval which elapsed between leaving 
the scene of his passing out and coming to the Police 
Station, Benton’s mind had been purposely stimulated 
by the Helper so that he could remember what had 
taken place immediately prior to the killing of his 
physical body. He had remembered, but feeling him¬ 
self as vigorous as he had ever been, imagined it was 
some kind of a hallucination—a fantasy. Now as the 
hideous truth dawned in on him that he had been 
deprived of all he desired—physical life and all that 


SOULS IN HELL 


251 


it meant to him—wealth, ambition, fame, adulation, 
the joys of the animal body with its lusts and pleas¬ 
ures,—he yelled and shrieked and stamped in tumul¬ 
tuous and passionate rage. 

No more would he enjoy the sybaritic delights of 
the table with its highly seasoned viands, its luscious 
fruits, its rare and mellow wines. 

Never again for him the intoxicating, perfume¬ 
laden atmosphere of society drawing-rooms with 
softly colored lights, the dim subtle shadows inviting 
to languorous tete-a-tetes with lovely women whose toi¬ 
lettes were merely an excuse for revealing rather than 
for concealing their seductive charms; the svelte fig¬ 
ures, the white skins, the rosebud fingers, the car- 
mined lips, the elegant coiffures, the priceless jewels 
enhancing and drawing attention to the delicately 
curved bosoms beneath. The dark eyes full of pas¬ 
sion and allure, ambushed under drooping lashes, sim¬ 
ulating a modesty they had long since ceased to feel, 
holding in their turbid depths promises of amorous 
delights; they, too, would never more weave their 
voluptuous snares for him. No more illicit meetings 
with loose-moraled wives of trusting husbands; no more 
scented billets-doux and Don Juan adventures. No 
more for him the unholy orgies with maidens of tender 
innocence, cajoled and tempted, drugged, then ruined; 
no more the lascivious revels of nameless degeneracy. 

No more would the plaudits of the crowd fall 
gratefully on his ears. He, the clever, resourceful 
comedian, the debonnaire man of society, the idol of 
women, the envied of his fellow-actors; he, whose 


SOULS IN HELL 


252 

name in flashing electrics on a theatre was alone suf¬ 
ficient to fill the house with an admiring audience 
for weeks at a stretch; whose exploits provided grist 
for the mills of the jaded newspaper hacks; whose 
opinions on the high educative value of the stage 
as a means for the betterment of mankind were 
quoted by clergymen in their Sunday pulpits—he 
had been torn away from all that had made life worth 
the living. 

All, all was gone! 

All that to him was “LIFE;” for life to him meant 
his own selfish pleasures of the flesh; and now that 
he had been deprived of his physical body through 
and by which he had experienced those dissipations, 
he was bereft of the means of obtaining and continu¬ 
ing those enjoyments. 

Stripped of everything he desired, he was poor in¬ 
deed! 

His wealth, for all the good it might do him, was 
dross! 

His fame, being merely other persons 9 opinions of 
his abilities, was to him worthless! 

His friends, of which he had many—of his own 
type, sybarites and degenerates,—were unable to help 
him; they, like himself, thought but little of the world 

to come, and-cared less. They sowed in the wind, 

little recking of the reaping in the whirlwind. Most 
of them, like himself, did not believe in a hereafter. 
“One world at a time!” was their motto, as also had 



SOULS IN HELL 


258 


been his. Things that were sacred and holy to others 
were to them, as also they had been to him—subjects 
to excite their ridicule and cynical ribaldry. They 
might be all very well for young children, and for 
old decrepit men and women who stood in need of 
gland or similar operations; but for men!—virile— 
such as he!- 

The Voice in the Radiance spoke to him. 

“Are you convinced?” 

Benton looked at his Interrogator, perplexed. His 
consciousness, which had been stimulated by the Help¬ 
er for the purpose of enabling him to see the physical 
world clearly, now that the power was being with¬ 
drawn, began to adjust itself to the more ethereal sub¬ 
stance of the world of disembodied souls. The room 
with its furniture lost its look of reality;, and, through 
the hazy atmosphere which softened and blended its 
harsh solidity, looked like an out-of-focus duplicate of 
the physical room—a dream picture. 

“I don’t know what to believe,” he retorted sullen¬ 
ly. “If this is the heaven that the priests and par¬ 
sons prate about, it isn’t what it’s cracked up to be; 
and if it is hell, pouf! it isn’t as bad as they say it 
is!” He smiled in his crass conceit to think that his 
gift of witty repartee had not deserted him; and that 
his humorous sally would have vastly amused his flip¬ 
pant intimates. 

The Helper gazed severely at him. “You are not 
in heaven. . . .” 

“I should hope not; for I expect something better 



254 


SOULS IN HELL 


than this,” he interrupted with a flash of his old in¬ 
solent manner. 

“Nor in hell,” continued the Voice. “Perhaps . . . 
your hell. . . .” the Voice paused, significantly . . . 
“is to come!” 

The actor laughed scornfully. He had either for¬ 
gotten his experience in the gray foggy maelstrom, 
or fancied that it must have been a delusion. 

“There is yet one other whom you should see. Come 
with me!” 

Benton for the moment hesitated, a callous quip 
on the tip of his tongue, but there was a tone of 
command in the Voice which he, for all his levity, felt 
obliged to obey. 

The haziness gave place to a police cell in which, 
sitting on a cot, was Jack Waller. 

Following the rules of the prison, he was without 
coat, collar or necktie. Bent forward, his chin resting 
on his hand, he was pondering over his predicament. 
Suddenly, he was conscious of a strange power like 
a wave of electric force thrill through him; he 
straightened up, wondering what was the cause. His 
psychic senses were sensitive enough to glimpse the 
glow of the unearthly light of the Radiance—the Light 
of a higher sphere, and he felt uplifted as he in¬ 
wardly murmured a prayer: “Protect her , O Lord, 
from evil, and . . . give me strength until the end!” 

Benton recognized him! 

His thin lips parted, baring his teeth in a fiendish 
snarl of hatred. His fingers crooked themselves like 
the talons of a cruel bird of prey. He sprang for- 


SOULS IN HELL 


255 


ward in an insane attempt to grasp his throat with 
his claws to throttle him, but his intention was frus¬ 
trated by the wall of light surrounding Waller, which 
the actor now noticed for the first time. In his anger, 
he dashed at Jack in an endeavor to break through 
the aura of light, only to be hurled back, grinding 
his teeth in impotency. Finding all his efforts at re¬ 
venge useless, he vented on Jack all the coarse epithets 
his obscene mind could remember. 

In his, literally, blind madness, he did not notice 
the changes taking place around him. 

The Radiance had gone! 




In his ignorance and self-conceit, Benton was un¬ 
aware that the presence of the Helper had been as a 
guardian wall set up between him and forces inimical 
to him, and that the beneficent Power had shielded him 
from things which were attracted to him by the force 
of his own affinity to them; which were, in fact, the 
results of his own lascivious and degenerate thoughts — 
known to the occultist by the name “thought-forms.’’ 
Verily, “ Thoughts are things /” 

His vituperation subsided when he felt a slimv 
“something” fasten on his cheek with a constricting, 
clammy movement. 

Clutching at the thing, his fingers sank into the 
yielding substance as he tried to dislodge it. As he 


U6 


SOULS IN HELL 


tore it away from his face, pieces of his flesh seemed 
to adhere to it. Holding it in his hand to see what 
it was, a quiver of abhorrence ran through him. The 
monstrosity had no definite form! It was protean in 
its changes. Even while he stared at it, the thing 
changed its shape ... in his grasp! Oddly shaped 
and vari-colored splotches of putridity—coming from, 
apparently, nowhere in particular—floated onto the 
mass of slime in his fingers and coalesced with it, al¬ 
tering its form and color. The thing itself seemed 
to be instinct with some kind of life, for it turned 
itself inside out . . . piecemeal! At one instant it 
was a sickly green with magenta-colored excrescences 
dotted with saffron spots which now spread out in 
large splotches, then abruptly disappeared beneath 
the surface of the slime; the next moment, the abom¬ 
ination was a closely packed horde of pale red eyes, 
set in a yellowish, pale green through which ran 
streaks of putrefaction with a wavy, wobbling mo¬ 
tion. 

Gazing in fascinated horror he saw that the thing 
was protruding itself between his fingers, and en¬ 
wrapping its foulness around his wrist and arm. He 
opened his fingers convulsively, and tried to shake it 
off. It broke into formless clots which floated aim¬ 
lessly away for a short distance, then, as if by an 
instinct of their own, coalesced, forming new and hor¬ 
rible combinations, which in turn were drawn to him 
as by some attractive power. 

The breaking up of the glutinous mass of putres¬ 
cence was accompanied by a bursting forth of a hor- 


SOULS IN HELL 


257 


rible stench;—the essence of putridity ! 

Benton reeled from the foul odors in disgust; for 
he felt as well as smelled them. 

Now he awoke to the fact that he was again within 
the moving strata of gray fog, which formed a shell 
around him. 

It was a churning , sinuous tomb of living corrup¬ 
tion! 

No longer was it merely fog! Every part of it 
was a bubbling, palpitating shape of malignity! Now 
separate, now joined together to form a grotesque 
and hideous unnameable thing! But whether in sep¬ 
arate flecks of rotten spume, or in coalesced mis¬ 
shapen lumps of indescribable aspect, they all floated 
toward Benton as though drawn by a magnet. 

His eyes bulging with terror, his lips drawn back 
in fear—like an animal at bay, he struck out wildly 
at the things that clung to him, sucking out his life- 
force. 

His efforts were of no avail! No sooner had he 
torn off one abominable thing than he was assailed by 
others. On all sides, blotches of corruption leered and 
fastened on him—feeding on his flesh! Transparent, 
livid-colored, creeping things wormed into his nostrils 
and ears. Foul, eel-like things trailed over his eyes, 
and forced their slimy way between his lips. 

Insane with horror, he observed that his flesh—- 
which clung to the things when he tore them away—in 
some unexplainable fashion renewed itself, and formed 
new material for other blotches to fasten and feed 
upon! 


258 


SOULS IN HELL 


He laughed hysterically as the myth of “Prome¬ 
theus Chained” flashed into his demented brain, and 
his madness took the form of likening himself to Pro¬ 
metheus chained to the rock with the vultures feeding 
on his liver, which constantly renewed itself for the 
next feast! 

Tearing a living lump of slime from his face, he 
watched with growing horror the creatures battening 
on his hand and arm. 

He screeched out shocking oaths against the one 
responsible for the killing of his physical body; hurl¬ 
ing epithets garnered in low bagnios and dens of 
nameless infamy, and expressed in the grossest terms 
of three languages. 

The shell of abominable things broke into larger 
and more menacing shapes! 

These new things were such as to baffle description! 
It would be impossible for any sane mind, even in the 
wildest and most extravagant fancy, to conceive such 
absurd malformations. 

It was a riot of indecent grotesquerie! 

The things looked as if some insane fiend had ran¬ 
sacked the animal, bird and insect kingdoms for 
strange and repellent forms, and, having dismembered 
them, had reconstructed and recombined them into 
unexpected and unthought-of aberrations. 

Huge elephantine legs with snake-like appendages 
for toes were surmounted with, and joined together 
by a ridiculously small body covered with hard scales 
through whose interstices exuded whip-like feelers end¬ 
ing in an eye, the pupil formed of a protruding claw. 


SOULS IN HELL 


259 


Loathsome toad-like forms having on their backs an 
eye which had a revolving skin with slits, giving it a 
weird effect of blinking. Vulture-like talons covered 
with globules moving incessantly. On the body of a 
lizard-shaped beast that Was upside down and moved 
sideways in an erratic manner, grew limbs belonging 
to animals and birds of prey, which were, apparently, 
stuck on haphazard and at odd angles to the body. 

Disgusting creatures of aberrant shapes crept and 
squirmed their sluggish way over Benton’s body, bur¬ 
rowing into his flesh. Trying to dislodge some of his 
tormentors, he was amazed to find that he was naked! 
He discovered, to his astonishment, that his whole 
body was , seemingly; made up of masses and com¬ 
binations of these things; these foul creatures of rot¬ 
tenness. That his body was the breeding place of 
all this festering vermin; and that however much he 
tried to rid himself of them, his efforts were useless; 
for he merely tore away the upper layers, disclosing 
deeper and yet deeper layers of purulent foulness. 

The surrounding “shell” of corruption seemed to 
be connected with his body; not only being part and 
parcel of it, but exuding from his own being. 

An efflorescence of putrefaction! 


********* 


Harassed and tormented, almost lifeless from the 
tremendous pressure of unseen presences around him; 


260 


SOULS IN HELL 


stonily cold as though he were embedded in a tomb 
of ice, he caught faint sounds of music. 

The gray mistiness began to be tinged with a shim¬ 
mering, pinkish translucency. 

Scarlet notes cadenced through the thick murk 
like stray beams of the rising sun lighting up the 
breaks in an overcast sky at dawn. The sounds car¬ 
olled and echoed in the distance, and awakened other 
sounds of differing timbre , colors, potencies, which 
with their overtones wove their nuances and subleties 
into a warp and woof of a cacophonic delirium. 

Far off—in the distance—a new dawn was being 
ushered in! 

Faintly at first, then growing louder and ever 
louder, the eerie orchestra seemed to be approaching. 
The feverish tones rose and fell in irregular pulsa¬ 
tions and rhythms; at one time sweetly soothing like 
the cooing of love-birds at their mating, then emerg¬ 
ing as a chaunt—a paean to strange gods sung in 
unison by golden throats; now dying away to a se¬ 
ductive murmuring faint with satiety, then gladsome 
with the joyous laughter of woodland sprites; now 
light and airy as filaments of gossamer floating on 
the summer breeze, now scintillating hysterically like 
the reflections of stars dancing on a rippled sea. 

Fantastically shaped butterflies of bizarre hues 
dreamily floated by. Scarlet birds, their plumage iri¬ 
descent with vari-colored light, flitted about him in 
long, sinuous curves which left paths of a metallic 
blue in the magenta-colored light; winging their way 
between the orange and pale green blossoms spring- 


SOULS IN HELL 


261 


ing up all around him,, which—as if they had sentient 
life—leaned towards him in smiling witchery. 

The dense gray, slimy, ice-cold fog had disap¬ 
peared, and in its place was a vibrating, magenta- 
colored atmosphere whose every atom seemed electri¬ 
fied with a feverish life, enwrapping him in a semi- 
pellucid opalescence. 

Throbbing ever nearer and nearer, the music 
swelled in intensity and volume; and, suddenly, as if 
great doors were opened, it crashed forth, full voiced, 
in a crimsoned magnificence; rioting over the world 
with the reckless abandon of an obscene saturnalia. 

All was ablaze with light! 

Forms which had been vague shapes of color, were 
now resolved into forms of dainty young maidens of 
surpassing loveliness; their supple nude bodies adorned 
with garlands of strangely-formed flowers, hued with 
colors the like he had never seen before. 

As they approached, singing and dancing as they 
came, Benton saw that they were accompanied by 
fauns, satyrs, centaurs, and other semi-human and 
semi-bird entities playing on curiously-shaped instru¬ 
ments. 

The pressure of the powerful unseen presences that 
had weighed him down had ceased, and now he was 
aware of a feeling of lightness; the palpitating air 
around seemed to permeate his whole being, and fill 
him with a new and exuberant life. 

The extraordinary pageant, bathed in an unearthly 
glow of pale magenta, was apparently endless; for it 


SOULS IN HELL 


262 

ggrg r r 

extended and merged into the blurred shapes appear¬ 
ing in the hazy background. 

Gazing in wonder, Benton saw the hazy forms de¬ 
velop into piles of stately architecture—pinnacled 
temples devoted to Priapic mysteries, and of a long 
past civilization—flanked with dark-leaved trees whose 
rich, dusky coloring made a remarkable contrast to 
the ivory-toned columns festooned with scarlet and 
pale green flowers, and to the burnished orange sky 
beyond. 

The air was pregnant with delight! 

Tingling with a delicious hysteria , every dazzling 
atom glittered with licentious ecstasy! 

Every movement in the surrounding atmosphere was 
a gesture of libidinous delirium! 

Weaving in and out, arms and feet and heads 
keeping time to the music,—now slow and entreating, 
now quick and tumultuous,—the fantastic cavalcade 
wound about him until the whole formed a solid ring 
of dancers leaping and gyrating in frenzied motions, 
dancing the indecent “circle dance” of olden times; 
the circle dance of the Kaldi, the worshippers of the 
Moon-God— ADON ; the circle dance of the Kadeshvm 
of the temples. 

As if by common consent the dancers stopped, and 
facing Benton, sang in unison a chaunt of praise of 
Iahoh Kadosh, the god of lasciviousness; sang the 
song of “lithos,” the song of the phallus —which Ben¬ 
ton represented; the chaunt being accompanied with 
gestures of the grossest obscenity. 


SOULS IN HELL 


263 


As suddenly as they had stopped, they as sud¬ 
denly began again to dance lightly around him,— 
their arms and hips swaying rhythmically,—singing 
strains of exquisite music; the modulations and inter¬ 
vals being of a kind new and novel to him. The siren 
melody, soft and seductive, electrified him with a con¬ 
suming desire; its weird lilt intoxicated him with 
leaping flames of lechery. 

Afire with passion, he gave himself up to the delirium 
of the phantasm, and stretched out his hands to seize 
the sylph-like figures dancing by. As they swung 
past with elusive motions, giving him coy glances and 
inviting gestures in response to his appeal, a quiver¬ 
ing pinkish mist arose before him, making the elfin 
forms of the dancers vague and indistinct. 

Even as he gazed and wondered, the misty cloud 
faded away, and a vision of ineffable loveliness stood 
before him. 

It was a nude figure of young womanhood, exquisite¬ 
ly graceful, a glorious mantle of red-gold hair en¬ 
veloping her sensuously curved body. 

A Venus clothed in a living flame! 

Shining with a silvery sheen, her transparent skin 
showed the pinkish flush of the hot red blood coursing 
beneath. Her lips, red as the dull crimson of an Ori¬ 
ental sunset and parted in a seductive smile, dis¬ 
closed two rows of pearly teeth. Half veiled by a 
mysterious shadow and framed by drooping lashes, 
her half closed eyes, lustrous with a slumbering fire, 
were moist with allurement. Dainty hands, their 
rosebud finger-tips pressed lightly on her bosom as 


264 


SOULS IN HELL 


though—in her excess of modesty—she would conceal 
the scarlet nipples that blazed like flames on her 
ivory-tinted breasts, invited him. Her cheeks, dimpled 
adorably, bloomed with the flush of a summer dawn. 
The perfume of her body filled his nostrils with an 
intoxicating caress. 

An apotheosis of carnality! 

Benton stood agape; entranced! The mystic spell 
and the wondrous splendor of her animality over¬ 
powered him! 

She smiled captivatingly, amused at his astonish¬ 
ment ; then, coyly and timidly gathering the long 
strands of her hair—which hung like a veiling cur¬ 
tain—and drawing them aside, she revealed herself 
in all her glorious nudity. 

Her eyes danced with merriment at his open- 
mouthed surprise. 

Hesitatingly, she held out her warm arms to him, 
whispering in a voice of bell-like tones: 

“Do you not know Me? ... 1 am yours! ... I am 
LOVE . . . your love . . . the one you have been 
seeking! ... Am I not desirable? . . . Do you not 
want Me now that I have come to you?'* 

Forgotten for the moment were his past torments ! 

Forgotten the horrible vermin in their disgusting 
orgies! 

Forgotten the faery vision of the Bacchantes , whose 
song still throbbed with a joyous lilt on the perfume¬ 
laden air! 

Benton’s whole being quivered in response to this 
apparition of loveliness; whose every curve and every 


SOULS IN HELL 


265 


line seemed tremulous with desire. His eyes lit up 
with the unholy joy of lust, and as he enveloped her 
in a close embrace, she wound her hot arms around his 
neck. Pressing her voluptuous body feverishly, he 
closed his eyes for an instant in joyous anticipation. 
Feeling her warm breath on his cheek, he sought her 
lips with his. 

Startled, he opened his eyes . . . He stared, astoun¬ 
ded! . . . His arms fell helpless at his sides ... A 
frozen look of horror and intense loathing came into 
his face . . . An icy blast petrified him! . . . 

The dimpled face had changed into a festering 
lump of corruption! 

The seductive , smiling mouth was a toothless , grin¬ 
ning hole in which crawled slimy , livid things! 

The magnificent , silky tresses were now squirm¬ 
ing tentacles that enwrapped him in their noxious 
clutches! 

Shrieking hysterically as he forced himself free from 
the thing’s embrace, he was horror-stricken to see that 
the exquisite, Venus-like figure had changed into that 
of an obscenely ugly hag with wrinkled, pendant bags 
for breasts which were swarming with maggots! 

The encircling band of spectral dancers now, once 
more, came into view; and as they pressed forward 
toward him, their forms changed into hideous shapes 
of repulsiveness. Their tuneful chaunt was now a 
wail of mocking taunts and shrieking laughter; and 
as they moved towards him, their swaying forms gave 


266 


SOULS IN HELL 


out a stench like that of a charnel-house! 

The birds and butterflies changed into things of 
demoniac hate; the flowers into deformed faces of 
depravity from which all hope had fled! 

The stately architecture shrivelled and collapsed 
into bloated mounds of putrescence! 

The shy was hlach! 

Sick with nausea, he reeled from the disgusting 
spectacle only to see a huge, gray shape come hurtling 
through the air toward him. 

A diabolic combination of an octopus with tentacles 
like the hairy legs of a giant tarantula pounced upon 
him; and, as it wrapped itself about his head and 
shoulders, emitted a nameless odor that was overpower¬ 
ing. 

Benton fought and struggled to release himself from 
the coils of this new enemy. In agony he turned in 
all directions seeking a way of escape from the 
abominations, but without success. 

On all sides he was surrounded by the clutching , 
rending demons! 

The medley of fiends and topsy-turvy monstrosities 
seemed to have but one purpose;—to tear him limb 
from limb, and to destroy him. 

Beating the air, and striking wildly at his tormen¬ 
tors, shrieking and sobbing in turns, crushed to the 
ground by the onslaught of the vile brood, he sank, 
helpless, vainly trying to shield his face. 

In the extremity of his agony, he uttered a despair¬ 
ing shriek entreating God to annihilate him, and put 
him out of his misery. 


SOULS IN HELL 


267 


“Mercy! Mercy! Oh, Christ, have mercy and let 
me die!” he groaned brokenly. 

A thrill ran through his tortured soul. 

He felt a cold clamminess rushing past him like the 
passing of a whirlwind. 

A golden Light streamed around him. 

The rending and tearing of the demoniac horde had 
ceased, and his broken soul felt a touch of healing. 

Opening his eyes cautiously, fearful of some trick 
being played on him by the demons, he saw the golden 
light and, looking up, followed it to its source. 

The white Brilliance of the Helper stood before him , 
and the Radiance enveloped him with a garment of 
scintillating Light. 

“Oh! . . . God . . in . . heaven! . . . Save me! . . . 
Save me! . . . for Christ’s sake!” he moaned. 

“I am not God! I am only a Helper; one of His 
humble servants sent to repentant souls,” said the 
Voice in golden tones. 

“I ... I am . . . repentant!” wailed Benton, 
humbly. “For God’s sake . . . take me out of this 
hell!” 

“If you are truly repentant, you must show that 
you are worthy of God’s mercy.” 

“ ‘God’s mercy!’ ” Benton repeated, bitterly. “If 
God is merciful, why am I in such torments?” 

“You . . . yourself . . . are responsible for your 
own torments! You are drawn into this vortex of 
iniquity and malignancy by the force of your own 
misdeeds. You are but reaping what you, on Earth, 
have sown! Your thoughts and your desires were 


268 


SOULS IN HELL 


rooted in vileness and sensuality; they have grown 
into an upas tree in whose tendrils of destruction you 
are enmeshed!” 

“God! Oh, Christ!” he exclaimed, his voice shaking 
with fear. “Is there no hope for me, No mercy?” 

“You may well ask for mercy!” replied the Voice 
in gentle sarcasm. “ You . . . who were so merciful! 
Look . . . see how merciful you were.” 

Benton’s gaze was transfixed in horror as a series 
of pictures unfolded before him, and followed one 
after another in rapid succession. They were scenes 
of his Earth-life; of the incarnation but recently end¬ 
ed. Most of them had been forgotten long ago; 
many of them merely hazy memories of his youth; now 
they appeared as if the scenes were taking place be¬ 
fore his eyes. Now, he was the spectator looking at 
himself strutting and playing his part in his own 
drama of Earth-life. Now, he not merely saw the ac¬ 
tions, but felt the emotions — the hopes and fears , the 
pains and disappointments , the anger and shame , the 
heart-burnings and thoughts of suicide—of those he 
had wronged. Now he saw the result of his immoral¬ 
ities ; his deflowering of young girls to satisfy his 
depraved sexual desires; saw the downward path on 
which he had set their feet, with its shame, degra¬ 
dation and broken hearts; saw the loving couples 
he had helped to separate; saw his spoken words, 
cynical and blasphemous, now appearing as living 
entities, and their effect on immature and erstwhile 
innocent minds—leading them into the devious paths 
of worldliness, sensuality and crime. 


SOULS IN HELL 


269 


He groaned in agony as he watched the pictures 
unfold. 

“Enough! Enough!” he protested, trying to shut 
out the sight, but without succeeding. “Oh, God! hare 
mercy! mercy! I didn’t know . . . didn’t know!” he 
wailed. “Oh, God! be merciful to me ... a fool!” 

He sank to the ground in utter abasement; over¬ 
whelmed by despair. 

“There is yet hope for you,—if you are truly re¬ 
pentant,” said the Helper, pityingly. “There is a 
way by which you can rise out of this dark world of 
demons.” 

Benton turned his contorted face upward; a look of 
hope in his pain-shot eyes. 

“As those”—the Helper indicated the raging de¬ 
mons outside the Radiance, “are your own deceitful, 
hateful, obscene thoughts, you can change your con¬ 
dition by changing your thoughts; also by trying to 
do good actions, and so offset the evil you have done.” 

Benton peered through the tremulous Radiance 
and saw, with a sinking heart, the legion of malignant 
things endeavoring to break through the protecting 
circle of light to seize him. 

“You are responsible for your own state,” continued 
the Voice. “Being the creator of his own environment 
and condition, Man can have light or darkness; good 
or evil. If you do evil, you reap the results of 
evil-doing; for by your thoughts you create demons 
that will rend you. If you think pure thoughts, and 
do good actions, all the Powers of Evil and Dark¬ 
ness are powerless to harm yon. That is the Law of 


270 


SOULS IN HELL 


God; the Law of Justice! You are the arbiter of 
your destiny.” 

“How was I to know all that?” Benton inquired, 
querulously. 

“You cannot claim ignorance,” said the Helper, 
severely. “In every religious teaching given to Hu¬ 
manity, the Law has been made plain and clear.” 

“But I didn’t believe in religion!” objected Benton. 

“In philosophies, which you took a delight in mis¬ 
reading, and putting an obscene meaning on spiritual 
truths, the Law was enunciated clearly.” 

“But I knew nothing of any such Law,” Benton 
persisted. 

“Your astronomers told you of the marvellous 
planning of the heavens; how great worlds careering 
in their orbits sped in their appointed paths in ac¬ 
cordance with Law; how even the messengers of solar 
systems—comets—which, after being lost to human 
ken, could have the time of their returning foretold 
with almost absolute precision; merely because the 
star-watchers knew that they, like the others of the 
starry host, were under the Law. From the infinitely 
great to the infinitely small, all are amenable to the 
Law of the Creator.” 

“How was I to know that there was a Creator?” 
asked Benton. “One of the astronomers you have been 
speaking about—Laplace—said he had swept the heav¬ 
ens with his telescope, and had failed to find God; 
so ... ” 

“Even your own favorite atheistical writers whom 
you delighted to quote, all concur in agreeing that 


SOULS IN HELL 


271 


Law governs the Universe. If there is a Law, there 
must, necessarily, be a Law-Maker; or do you imagine 
that Laws spring into existence haphazard and with¬ 
out any reason. 

Because you—a mite on a bit of star-dust floating 
in an infinity of space—could not conceive of a Law- 
Maker, and compared to Whom you are as nothing, 
you found it easier to disbelieve. It salved and al¬ 
layed your conscience so that it would not trouble 
you while you pandered and degraded your soul to 
your animal nature, secure as you imagined in your 
unbelief. You deliberately refused to believe the evi¬ 
dence of your senses, for all around you were the 
manifestations of the great Creative Power; from 
the humble flower of the field growing from a seed in¬ 
to a plant which transformed the so-called inorganic 
into organic vegetable cells, leaves, and lovely blos¬ 
soms with exquisite perfume, all the way up to the 
tremendous forces of Nature; manifestations you airily 
dismissed as being the result of accident, of fortuit¬ 
ous circumstances, of chance! You had many oppor¬ 
tunities to observe the manifestations of Nature, and to 
note the marvellous design underlying those manifes¬ 
tations ; for you had travelled farther over the Earth 
than had most men, and were gifted with a quick, 
alert, analytical mind. Instead of devoting your in¬ 
tellectual powers to helping your fellow men by giving 
them high ideal concepts,— at the same time benefit- 
ting yourself,—you preferred using them to debase 
humanity, and to spread the deadly virus of evil¬ 
thinking and evil-doing. You made your own choice; 




SOULS IN HELL 


none else compelled. You chose unwisely, and must 
now reap the fruits of that choice; but you can miti¬ 
gate the punishment which you have brought upon 
yourself by trying to do better. It is for you to say 
which you prefer. Yours to make the choice.” 

Benton glanced fearfully at the host of lurid de¬ 
mons outside the protecting Radiance. 

“I’ve had enough of this! Tell me what I must do 
to get out of this infernal torment, and . . . I’ll do my 
best. I cannot do more.” 

“First, you must blot all hate out of your heart, 
and learn that the Law of God is ‘LOVE.’ If you 
put that into practice, you will take the first and 
most important step to rise out of the condition you 
now are in.” 

“Am I expected to love those who have wronged 
me?” he asked with a frown. 

“Yes! *Forgive us our transgressions as we forgive 
those that transgress against us . 9 99 

“Love my enemies, eh? That is impossible!” 

“Attend carefully to what I say, and try to un¬ 
derstand ; perhaps it will make it easier for you,” 
replied the Helper. “Man is the centre of his own 
little universe—his own being, which consists of very 
much more than his physical body; indeed, the physi¬ 
cal body is the lowest and fractional part of him, for 
it is but an animal through which the real man mani¬ 
fests on the physical plane, and uses for the purpose 
of acquiring knowledge of that earth-plane. You, 
yourself, now know that the man is a thinking en¬ 
tity apart from and independent of his physical body.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


273 


Benton nodded his acquiescence in the statement; 
the experiences he had gone through made the fact 
self-evident. 

“Man is his own god and . . . his own devil! By 
the use he makes of the powers given him by still 
Higher Powers, he can make of his little universe a 
hell or a heaven; for that universe is formed and 
affected by his own thoughts and desires. If his 
thoughts and desires are pure and unselfish, he sees 
that which is outside himself in its true aspect; but 
if they are selfish, sensual and filthy, his thought-at¬ 
mosphere is discolored and muddied, and all that he 
sees is tinted with the discolorations and dirtiness of 
that thought-shell. It is as though he lived in a 
shell of glass of various colors.” 

Benton indicated that he followed and understood 
the analogy. 

“As you have seen: the man’s thoughts are living 
forces; Cosmic forces which he uses to express his 
desires. If those forces are used to express his re¬ 
vengeful, malignant desires, they recoil on himself— 
as you have already discovered to your sorrow,—for 
they belong to him; they are his own forces. And isn’t 
it right and just that he should have what belongs 
to him?” 

Benton smiled grimly at the question. He wondered 
how much the Helper knew of him and his traits. It 
sounded so much like Benton’s own self asking the 
question; for, in his fight for place and recognition, 
that very phrase was the favorite one he himself used 
as a final argument against those who sought to 


274 


SOULS IN HELL 


swindle him out of the results and benefits which be¬ 
longed to him. “I did the work, didn’t I? Then I 
expect to get everything that is coming to me; every¬ 
thing that’s due me—to the last red cent!” had been 
his favorite rejoinder. Now that his own argument 
was brought forward, he could not but admit its jus¬ 
tice. 

“If you had built your thought-shell with pure, 
loving thoughts and high, unselfish desires, you would 
have had angels of light welcoming you instead of de¬ 
stroying devils; you would be surrounded with living 
forces of beneficent power through which no destruc¬ 
tive forces could break and enter.” 

Benton’s keen, alert mind grasped the teaching 
eagerly. 

“Then this light . . . around you ... is ” 

“My thought-atmosphere; the thought-shell formed 
by my life forces. Some call it ‘the aura.’ ” 

“And that is why those . . . demons . . . cannot 
touch me?” inquired Benton, very much interested by 
the new paths of knowledge opening out to him. “The 
forces expressing themselves as light keep them away. 
Is that it?” 

“You are learning rapidly,” replied the Helper. 

“But you said that they were my own life-forces. 
How can you keep them away from me if they are 
part of me?” 

“You are not the creator of all those demons, but 
as ‘like attracts like,’ so those which have been crea¬ 
ted by other men and left to disintegrate—for their 
makers have gone on to higher spheres—are galvanized 


SOULS IN HELL 


275 


into new activity by your own thought-forces being 
of the same nature, and are attracted to you. Noth¬ 
ing evil, nothing harmful can assail a man unless he 
has something in his own character which corresponds 
to that evil, and, therefore, attracts it . . ” 

“And I ... I can change my thought-shell to a halo 
of living light like yours, do you say?” Benton asked 
anxiously. 

“By thinking high, pure thoughts you can purify 
your thought-shell or ‘aura;’ and, instead of being a 
destructive influence, you can be a beneficent power 
to help those who need helping, and who do not pos¬ 
sess your intellectual capacity.” 

“Then I swear . . . with God’s help ... I will try 
to do better,” said Benton fervently, looking upward. 

In wonderment he saw an inverted cone-shaped shaft 
of exquisite lavender-colored light above him; its apex 
close to his head. He turned with a questioning glance 
to the Helper. 

“That is a sign that your resolve has been heard 
on the upper planes of being; and that help from 
on high is being given to you—to strengthen you.” 

“Why is it lavender color?” inquired Benton, eager 
for knowledge. 

“It is white, really, and of such high intensity and 
potency that it would disintegrate and dissolve you 
into the elements. In love and mercy it has been tem¬ 
pered to accord with your condition.” 

Benton again looked up at the light, and as he felt 
the healing balm entering his soul, his face lit up 
with high resolve. The Helper smiled hopefully, 


276 


SOULS IN HELL 


watching the effect on the actor, and thought of the 
old adage, “From great sirmers come great samts ! 99 

“You are fortunate in being able to see that light,” 
the Helper remarked. “Many who come from your 
earth-world cannot see at all!” 

“Cannot see at all!” repeated Benton, with a ques¬ 
tioning inflection. “Why, how is that?” 

“A large number of the so-called ‘educated’ in¬ 
habitants of your earth-world are materialists; men 
who live their lives in accordance with their belief that 
‘mind,’ ‘force’ and other energies are the resultant of 
‘matter.’ When they pass out of their world into this, 
they, believing that death means annihilation of their 
consciousness, enter this world almost blind; in some 
extreme cases, totally blind! They deny their spiritual 
part to such an extent that their sense of soul-sight 
becomes atrophied.” 

“But ... in my case; how does it happen that my 
sight ...” 

“Your ideas along those lines were not the result of 
conviction or deep thought. With you it was merely 
the easiest way—to lull your conscience. Man is a 
duality—a spiritual entity dwelling within an animal. 
Much of your energy was devoted to the desires and 
instincts of the animal part; but, fortunately, the re¬ 
mainder found an outlet along higher lines—artistic 
production, which developed and brought into play 
the attributes of the soul—the creative and intui¬ 
tional faculties. You, as it were, are a pendulum 
which swings in a large arc; at one point touching 
the deeps of animality, sweeping back in its return 


SOULS IN HELL 


277 

swing to a point as high as the other is low. Incar¬ 
nation after incarnation you have been doing the same 
thing , allowing the soul part to be degraded by be¬ 
ing enamored of the lusts of the animal; dragging 
Psyche in the mire and soiling her wings , instead of 
uplifting and refining the animal nature and using 
it for the higher purposes of the Soul. And always 
with the same reaping! It is said that ‘experience 
makes fools wise!’ Have you learned your lesson, or 
will you, like the Prodigal Son of the parable, eat 
of the husks—the leavings of the swine—before turning 
your face to your Father’s house—your spiritual 
home? With your powerful will and alert, brilliant 
mind, what a force for good you could be!” 

“Strangely enough,” said Benton ruefully, “I have 
a feeling that . . . er . . . this sort of thing”— 
he glanced at the horde outside the Radiance—“has 
happened before; but I cannot quite place it—can’t 
just remember.” 

“It has happened more than once,” stated the Hel¬ 
per, reminiscently. “I have been here to meet you 
many, many times! When you progress to a higher 
plane, you will remember.” 

“Tell me,” said Benton, a new tone of strength in 
his voice. “Tell me what I can do. I am anxious to 
begin!” He stood erect, his whole being filled with 
high resolve. 

“The first good deed you can and should do, is to 
help to prove Waller innocent of the crime of murder.” 

Benton made no reply. He was thinking! 

A picture appeared before his eyes,—the scene on 


278 


SOULS IN HELL 


board the ocean liner when Waller had struck him. 
A maddening rage began to swirl through him. 

“Stop! Stop! Do not add to your thought-shell 
any more demons of revenge!” warned the Helper. 
“If Waller has done any wrong, he will suffer for it; 
lie, being responsible for the sowing, he will reap the 
result! You can safely leave it to the Great Law of 
Justice. You who have experienced a little of the 
sufferings consequent on wrong-doing should have 
thoughts of sympathy for him, not revenge.” 

Benton nodded bravely. “I see. I see now! It 
will come very hard at first because I am naturally a 
fighter, and because I’ll probably forget, but . . . 
I’ll conquer!” he added with a grim look. “Anyway 
. . . I guess I deserved it!” 

“Good! Now perhaps you can understand the mean¬ 
ing of ‘Forgive our sins, as we forgive those who sin 
against ws;’ and also that other ancient saying: ‘Ha¬ 
tred doth not cease by hatred, but by love!’ ” 

Benton reflected a moment, then nodded thought¬ 
fully. “I am ready, if you will show me how to help 
him,” he said definitely. “Do you know,” he added 
with a whimsical smile, “I am rather curious to see 
how the Law works out.” 

The Helper smiled gladly, and put his arm around 
Benton’s shoulders. 

“Then come with me, and }mu shall know what hap¬ 
piness really means! Happiness is what all men and 
women are seeking. Their religious teachers and phi¬ 
losophers all point out the ‘Way,’ but poor conceited 
Humanity will not believe and persists in going the 


SOULS IN HELL 


279 



wrong way. Instead of developing the spiritual side 
of themselves—which is the permanent part of man— 
by helping each other, they develop the animal part 
—which is only a temporary habitation for the spirit 
—by endeavoring to seize and conserve for themselves 
all that they can. However successful they may 
have been in doing this,—piling up wealth and 
various other possessions,—when they die and 
leave all behind them, they find on entering this world 
of spirits that they are poor indeed—for, they have 
nothing! Like the dog in the fable: they have seized 
at the shadow, and missed the substance—the spirit¬ 
ual. 

Benton’s lips set in a sad smile. “I guess they are 
like myself; they have to learn through bitter exper¬ 
ience !” 


XXII. 


While Benton was learning a little of the workings 
of the Great Law of Justice in the world of discarnate 
souls; those whom he had left behind in the Earth- 
world were going through experiences which, to them, 
were torments—a hell upon earth! 

With the dawning of the day following the fatal 
night of Benton’s murder and Jack’s arrest, poor Tom 
Cogan arose wearily from the bed on which he had 
spent a sleepless night. 

Through the dragging hours of darkness, he had 
lain with wide open eyes, waiting for the light of day 
which seemed would never come. He had painfully gone 
over all the details of the affair, again and again, 
weighing the evidence for and against his brother- 
in-law, only to arrive at the same conclusion; and 
from which, so far as he could see, there was no es¬ 
cape. That conclusion was: Jack was guilty! Jack 
had killed the actor! When he tried to delve deeper in¬ 
to the matter, seeking a motive for the act, he had to 
confess himself baffled. 

One solution which occurred to his tired mind,—one 
of doubtful value, but worth considering as a possible 
line of defence,—was that Jack had, in some way, 
broken down under the terrific strain of the life at the 
280 


SOULS IN HELL 


281 


‘‘front;” and that the tension and excitement of his 
activities as a member of the Escadrille had affected 
his reason. In other words: Jack Waller had had a 
“brain-storm”! He had read in the newspapers of 
numerous instances where strong men had broken 
down under the unusual strain of the noise and con¬ 
cussion of the big guns, and had become nervous 
wrecks; being obliged to leave the scene of strife and 
frightfulness, and go to some quiet place to recover, 
and to rest their shattered nerves. 

‘Evidently, that is the reason! In Jack’s case the 
breakdown didn’t happen over there, but was post¬ 
poned until it showed for the first time on board 
ship.’—So Cogan’s thoughts ran as he turned over in 
his mind the probabilities of such being the solution 
of the motive. ‘That is the only hope I can see; and 
at that, it might be worked up into a fairly strong 
defence.’ The pleas of “brain-storms” and “temporary 
insanity” had saved others from the electric chair, so 
why not use it in his brother-in-law’s case?—he ar¬ 
gued. Jack had everything in his favor otherwise. He 
was well liked and had made lots of friends in the little 
town, some of whom, he hoped, would be sitting on the 
jury. 

“Yes,” he muttered, “that’s the best defence! All 
we need is a good alienist to testify along those lines.” 
The thought of the expense the engaging of such an 
expert would mean came into his mind, “But God only 
knows where the money is to come from!”—which 
brought him back to his own pecuniary problems. 

It certainly seemed that everything was against 
him and his ambition. In another twenty-four hours 
the comedy would have been finished, and he would 


SOULS IN HELL 


282 

have been richer by one thousand dollars, and looking 
forward to seeing his play make a hit with the possi¬ 
bility of a long run on Broadway. He felt so sure of 
its success. He was no fool! He knew! Hadn’t he 
carefully and as unbiasedly as possible compared his 
witty lines and funny situations with the punk stuff 
that were the popular hits? Of course he knew! Be¬ 
sides, only last night, hadn’t Benton gone into rap¬ 
tures over the whimsicalites and word-play; bursting 
into laughter as he read the lines with that inimitable, 
unctuous cackle in his voice, and the side-splitting 
comical expression of distress on his face? 

“Only—last night!” repeated Cogan, despondently. 

Dwelling on the thought of how near he had been 
to the goal of his ambition, to the fruition of all his 
hopes, to the crowning of his labors with success, a 
feeling of rancor arose in his heart. 

“Damn it!” he exclaimed. “If the young fool had 
to kill, why the devil didn’t he pick on somebody else 
instead of Benton? Plenty of others in the world who 
wouldn’t be missed; but no . . it must be Benton! And 
right at this time, too, when everything promised so 
well. If he had to kill him , why in hell couldn’t he 
wait until . . .” 

It had been said, and truly, that we make our own 
heaven and our own hell! Poor Cogan, cogitating and 
brooding over the opportunity now lost, and through 
no fault of his own, created (unknown to himself) 
thought-forms that vaguely resembled scorpions which 
stung him into a fury of passionate anger. He, a 
big-hearted, generous soul who in his normal condition 
would not hurt a fly, let alone do harm to a fellow-be¬ 
ing, now, by the mis-use of his thought-forces, was 


SOULS IN HELL 


283 


rapidly working himself into an abnormal state of re¬ 
sentment against his brother-in-law—one of his dear¬ 
est and best beloved chums. 

Verily—to paraphrase an ancient Scriptural saying, 
—we suffer from ourselves; none else compels! 

Verily , we make our own hell! 

Fortunately for him, his nervous system was in such 
a state that he soon felt the depleting effect of his pas¬ 
sionate outburst; and, strong man though he was, 
ended by his breaking down and sobbing like a child, 
feeling ashamed of having given way to such unwor¬ 
thy thoughts. 

“What a mean cuss I am,” he muttered penitently. 
“Poor old Jack! He needs your help, not your re¬ 
proaches . . . you skunk!” he cried, addressing himself 
as he prepared for his morning plunge. “The boy is in 
trouble, in a confoundedly bad hole; so it is up to 
you to find a way out of it, you . . . big stiff, you!” 
He viciously banged the wet sponge against his burn¬ 
ing head. 


& 


In the adjoining room, Mrs. Cogan was lying on her 
bed in her dressing gown;—thinking. 

After she and her husband returned home from 
their visit to the Police Station, and he had sorrow¬ 
fully kissed her good night and gone to his own room, 
she proceeded to undress with the intention of going 
to bed; but the letters under the mattress haunted and 
irritated her. Though unseen, they exerted on her an 


284 


SOULS IN HELL 


influence of uneasiness. They were so many accusing 
fingers pointing at her; and although they were cov¬ 
ered and out of sight, in her mind’s eye she could see 
them as plainly as if they were exposed to her phys¬ 
ical eyes. The lavender-colored envelopes, and the 
narrow pale-blue ribbon that bound them together, ap¬ 
peared vividly before her; all . . . except the writing 
inside on the notepaper; and she longed to see and 
read to find out, after all these years, what kind of a 
silly fool she had been, and how far she had compro¬ 
mised herself in the writing of them. 

They worked powerfully on her imagination! So 
strongly did they affect her, that it was not long be¬ 
fore she found herself going through the same mental 
distress she had gone through when Benton still had 
them in his possession, and had threatened her with 
exposure. Rapidly approaching the breaking point, 
she realized that if she did not read the letters, and 
get the agonizing torture over and done with, she 
would have a fit of hysterics. Not hearing her hus¬ 
band’s usual stertorous breathing, she surmised he was 
awake, and might, at any moment, take it into his 
head to come to her room to see if she also were 
awake, and spend his sleepless hours talking over her 
brother’s predicament. 

She was between the devil and the deep sea! 

Finally, she could stand the suspense no longer! “I 
must read them, and run the risk of Tom coming in; 
otherwise I shall go crazy!”—so she told herself. 

Putting her dressing gown on, she turned the small 
electric reading lamp on her table so that its light 
shone on the door between the two bedrooms, and threw 
a shadow on the pillow and upper part of the bed. “I 


SOULS IN HELL 


885 


won’t be caught unaware, anyhow,” she muttered, 
smiling at her own cunning; then, throwing herself on 
the bed with sufficient noise to announce the fact to 
her husband (who would think she had retired for the 
night), she reached under the mattress, and pulled 
out the package of letters. Under cover of the pillow, 
she untied the ribbon and brought out the top enve¬ 
lope. In the half light of the shadow cast on her, she 
hastily opened it and drew forth the folded letter. She 
stared at it—astonished! It wasn’t her writing! Not 
knowing what to think, she commenced reading it. 

The letter, written in a small masculine script, was 
as follows: 

“Mv dear, clever little innocent: 

Being a ‘fun-maker’ by profession, and—if I may 
without undue egotism say so—a very good one, I am 
naturally prone to look at the humorous side of life. 
(There’s a lot of grim humor in the world, if you only 
know where to look for it!) So—I like playing prac¬ 
tical jokes! And—I do hope you will enjoy this one 
as much as I do. 

“Years ago, as you probably remember, I evolved a 
little scheme by which I could add a trifle to my cup 
of happiness; and, at the same time, introduce you to 
the joys and delights of love. Unfortunately for me 
and my contemplated pleasure, my plan miscarried 
owing to your absurd old-fashioned objections. You 
dear little Puritan! 

“I am not accustomed to having my plans thwarted, 
so (I confess it now) I felt my defeat very keenly. 
Judge of my surprise and delight on meeting you 
again! Not an immature rosebud this time, but a full¬ 
blown blossom in all its voluptuous beauty! 


286 


SOULS IN HELL 


Now to me, the great unpardonable sin is: to miss 
my opportunity! So much for your part in the com¬ 
edy. Now to the other. 

Your beloved, dashing, handsome, brave, etc., etc., 
hero brother whom I had the honor of meeting on the 
liner, forgot himself to the extent of insulting me; 
even going so far as to put his damned, dirty paws 
on me! 

When I had the further honor of meeting him in 
your house, the insolent, conceited puppy again in¬ 
sulted me! 

‘Everything comes to him who waits,’ and, do you 
know? I am a very good waiter! also—revenge is all 
the sweeter for the waiting; especially when one is 
doubly revenged—as I am. 

Now that you have exchanged your precious , pure , 
innocent virtue for these letters—excuse me a moment 
while I laugh!—you can probably see the point and 
enjoy the joke, and—my revenge at the same time. 

Ever your ‘friend,’ 

Karl Benton. 

P. S. Be sure to tell your hero brother the joke—ha 
will enjoy it! 

P. P. S. Be sure and don’t forget to tell him.” 

As she read the words slowly, a look of blank aston¬ 
ishment came over her face. Thrusting her hand under 
the pillow, she drew out the other letters. The enve¬ 
lopes were new, but had been crumpled and soiled to 
give them the appearance of age. They bore no name 
or address; were bare of writing save the words: “ The 
same joke!” “Still the same joke!” “ Again the same 


SOULS IN HELL 


287 


joke!” “And yet again—the same joke!” the remain¬ 
der being variations of the same phrase. 

She opened the envelopes one by one. 

They were all empty! 

There was not a single line or word of her writing 
in the whole batch, excepting the name and address on 
the first envelope; which, he had, probably, found 
among some old letters. 

As the appalling fiendishness of his deviltry became 
apparent to her, she thought that she would go rav¬ 
ing mad! All the time he was holding those letters over 
her head, threatening her with them if she refused to 
give up her body to his lustful desires, the dastardly 
scoundrel was merely bluffing her! Evidently, he had 
written this letter in the full expectation and assur¬ 
ance that his damnable scheme of luring her to his 
apartment to sell her honor for what purported to be 
her letters would be successful. 

She crammed the pillow between her teeth to stop 
the shriek, that boiled within her, finding utterance! 
Her head was bursting: the veins stood out on her 
throat and temples like cords. 

“The cold-blooded devil!” she mumbled thickly. “To 
deliberately try to ruin my life, and wreck a happy 
home where he had been welcomed as a friend. The 
villain! The black-hearted reprobate! Why God al¬ 
lows such a scoundrel to breathe, and poison the 
air . . .” 

Her tirade broke off short; for she suddenly re¬ 
membered that Benton’s body was lying stiff and cold 
in the Police Station. 

A glow of intense satisfaction spread over her face. 

“Huh! It was about time his father—the devil—got 


288 


SOULS IN HELL 


him! God knows it wasn’t any too soon. I hope he will 
suffer the tortures of the damned, and get what is 
coming to him!” A pious wish which seemed to soothe 
and calm her. 

Tearing the envelope addressed in her writing into 
small fragments, she put them in one of the other en¬ 
velopes which she fastened securely. Tying the letters 
together, she caught sight of the words, “The same 
joke!” Benton had written on an envelope. 

“Yes, my noble bucko!” she muttered exultantly; 
“ ‘tis the same old joke; and it’s on you, mister clev- 
erbones! I hope you are enjoying it,” she added sar¬ 
castically. 

The package of letters having been safely hidden 
under the mattress, she turned off the light, and gave 
herself up to meditating on the situation. 

“So Jack put his ‘dirty’ hands on him, did he? I 
guess that means that Jack punched him. Good for 
him! I wonder why? I’ll have to ask Jack about it.” 

Her thoughts went to her brother, wondering what 
he was doing at that moment. Was he asleep, or was 
he, also, sleepless and occupied with his thoughts. Good 
old Jack! Well, it would be all right tomorrow; God 
bless him ! Now that the threatened danger of the let¬ 
ters was over, she could tell Jack all about the affair, 
and so enable him to speak and prove his innocence. 

“I can also tell Toni, now . . .” she began; but the 
question, ‘Tell him what?’ faced her and took her by 
surprise. Her new-born hope of informing her hus¬ 
band, and so proving Jack innocent was nipped in the 
bud. 

“Oh! dear God! what can I tell him?” she thought 
in dismay. “I’m no better off now than I was before, 


SOULS IN HELL 


289 


for he would see that I had written some letters which 
I was ashamed of, and—heavens! the fat would be in 
the fire just as bad as if he had the letters in his 
hand!” That phase of the matter had not occurred to 
her. “Oh! I am worse off than ever. If he had my let¬ 
ters to read, I could explain about them,; but now . . . 
now that they do not exist, and cannot be read . . . 
the good Lord only knows what he would imagine!” 

Her predicament was as hopeless as it had ever 
been, and the possibility of her brother being shown 
innocent by anything she was at liberty to say was as 
remote as before. Her hands were tied, and she was 
helpless! All that she could do was to go through the 
torture of the coming days, with her own dread se¬ 
cret locked in her heart; hoping and praying that her 
brother would not have to suffer more than a temporary 
incarceration, and be free by something happening 
(she knew not what) to prove his innocence. 

The dawn found her no nearer the solution of the 
problem; and when she heard her husband taking his 
morning bath, she got off the bed to dress herself. 
With a splitting headache, and weary from lack of 
sleep, she stared dully at the pink light showing 
through the trees; speculating on what this day, and 
the days to come, held in store for her, and what 
other miseries she had yet to experience. 


& 


As with many of her passionate, full-blooded type, 
her language now and then was a trifle more forcible 


290 


SOULS IN HELL 


than the occasion oalled for; and she was fond of 
punctuating her speech with, what a more staid person 
would call, profanity. Where the ordinary, conven¬ 
tional woman would say, “My goodness,” she would 
say, “My Godwhich, of course, is a difference merely 
of degree, not of kind. When she felt that a strong 
term was needed, she ripped out a full-sized, well- 
rounded “damn!”—which in her case did not mean 
that she was profane, but simply denoted a strong 
nature giving vent to feelings under high pressure. 

In the bohemian, happy-go-lucky coterie of her 
friends, who did not pay much attention to the little 
non-essentials of a person so long as the fundamentals 
were sound, her idiosyncracy passed unheeded. They 
knew that her heart was a big one and in the right 
place; and they were too broad-minded to let a few 
“cuss” words blind them to her solid virtues. The 
few strait-laced ones she met now and then, (who, while 
they may have thought profanity, were careful enough 
of the conventions not to offend by uttering it, and 
considered it “low” if not positively indecent of her to 
use such expressions in public,) opined that Mrs. Co- 
gan was not a person they could safely associate with; 
which was a pity, for, in the true essentials of woman¬ 
hood, she was a good woman. 

Was any movement started in the village to allevi¬ 
ate suffering of any sort,—helping a farm laborer who 
had met with an accident, thereby throwing his family 
on the charity of the public; or collecting money for 
the poor to tide them over the winter months; she was 
there in the forefront with two willing hands and a 
heart overflowing with the milk of human kindness. 

Many a poor woman who could not sew, either for 


SOULS IN HELL 


291 


lack of time or knowledge, remembered her with grati¬ 
tude for some sorely needed garments stitched by her 
nimble fingers, or put together on her sewing machine. 
Sometimes the help took the form of crisp pies, and 
delicacies for those who needed but did not have the 
wherewithal to buy them. 

Like most of her race, she was versatile and also 
a good organizer; a combination that was always at 
the service of anyone who was not so well equipped. 
But the Irish have the fatal gift of imagination / In 
the cradles, when their mothers’ backs were turned, 
the babies listened to the crooning and weaving of 
spells of the pixies, little green-goodfellows, and lep¬ 
rechauns, and had their foreheads touched with the 
wands of the fairies, elves, and sprites of the unseen 
world of nature-spirits, endowing them with imagina¬ 
tive powers that, rightly used, can be pinions to cleave 
the empyrean, or, misused, chains to fetter them in 
the pit of Tantalus. It is owing to that characteris¬ 
tic that they are extremists; up on the crest of the 
wave of hopefulness today, down in the trough of de¬ 
spair tomorrow. Light-hearted and gay one minute, 
the next finds them sad at heart—crooning their 
melancholy melodies. Like all those belonging to the 
mercurial temperament, they are as brave as lions 
while the sun is shining and the blood runs hot; but 
downcast as their own weeping skies when the shadows 
of life fall upon their souls; for then their imagina¬ 
tive faculty comes into its own, and plays havoc with 
them! 

A true daughter of Erin, Mrs. Cogan was cursed 
with the imagination of her people. Not seeing clear¬ 
ly whither her life-path wended its way, she imagined 


292 


SOULS IN HELL 


all sorts of fearful probabilities. If, at the very be¬ 
ginning of her troubles, she had gone to her husband 
and told him the whole story of her acquaintance with 
the actor, she would have saved herself, her brother, 
and her husband many unhappy hours. Cogan with 
his quick Irish temper would have, no doubt, flared 
up and ripped holes in the atmosphere in the exuber¬ 
ance of his passion; but in ten or fifteen minutes— 
after he had used up all his expletives—the clouds 
would have passed away, and forgiveness would have 
been freely given her. As it was, her imagination was 
too much for her. 

Which prompts us to again remark, “We make our 
own hell!” 


XXIII 


Occultists are well aware that this Earth of ours 
is one of the “hells.” 

Millions on millions of years ago, when the group 
of infant souls called “Humanity” first entered oil 
their activities on this planet, Earth was a Paradise 
which knew no evil, no suffering, no death. As those 
infant souls developed intellect they were, up to a cer¬ 
tain point in their evolution, guarded and guided by 
men of an advanced type (of another and previous 
evolution) who taught them how to use their budding 
intellectual powers wisely and well; and, within cer¬ 
tain limits (toward evil), they were allowed free scope 
for their energies. “Freewill within limits.” 

After passing a certain point in his evolution, what¬ 
ever “Man” did, he was held responsible for the results 
of his actions,—precisely as children are responsible 
only after a certain age; hence, in all the great reli¬ 
gions is found-—variously phrased—the warning: 
“Whatsoever a man soweth f that shall he also reap!” 

Due partly to the allurement of the lustful, animal, 
lower nature; partly owing to his overweening conceit 
of his intellectual attainments and material achieve¬ 
ments, MAN has by his selfishness, cruelty, and ambi¬ 
tion for personal power turned the erstwhile Paradise 
into what closely resembles a hell. 


SOULS IN HELL 


294 

Just as the Great Universal Law—which is Justice 
—repays with beneficence all those who live and work 
in accordance with that Law, so IT inexorably de¬ 
mands full reparation from those who break the Law. 
That reparation is exacted in the world wherein the 
deeds were done; hence re-incarnation, or re-birth of 
the soul into new bodies, life after life. The man who 
finds his opportunity in another’s necessity, and takes 
advantage of his weakness, inexperience or ignorance 
to do him harm, sooner or later finds that he must 
repay,—even to the “uttermost farthing.” That is 
“Karma”—the Law of Cause and Effect in the Moral 
World. 

Until the former paradisaical condition of Earth is 
restored, real, lasting happiness will not be possible 
in this vale of woe and tears; for as we (MAN) are 
responsible for the present conditions through the mis¬ 
use of our thought-power, we are under the obligation 
to right the wrongs we have done; to make the crook¬ 
ed straight; to change into good that which we have 
made evil; in short, to repay! 

As an old Scripture says: “Thought in the mind 
hath made us. What we are , by thought was wrought 
and built. If a man's mind hath evil thoughts , pain 
comes on him as comes the wheel the ox behind. All 
that we are, is what we thought and willed; our 
thoughts shape us and frame.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


295 


Most of us go through life wondering why “suc¬ 
cess” has not attended our efforts. 

All around us we see our fellows striving mightily 
for . . . what? A brief season of success —material 
success, not knowing that success in the material sense 
of fame, honors, wealth, possessions, does not always 
connote real success; in fact, from the higher viewpoint 
it does but rarely. Hence we see that most of those 
who generally achieve success on this material plane of 
being, are those who are the most materially minded; 
with the blatant voice of the ass, the cunning of the 
fox, the cruelty of the tiger, the thick hide of the 
rhinoceros, the fangs of the wolf, the animality of the 
hyena. There are, of course, exceptions; but they are 
few and far between. 

The seers of humanity—the poets, philosophers, 
musicians, artists, all those who are aglow with spiri¬ 
tual light, and full of the message of the coming day— 
struggle unknown and unheeded by their more mate¬ 
rialistic fellows. 

Our friend Tracy— the short-story writer—whom 
we introduced in the early part of our narrative, was 
one of those whose souls had awakened to higher 
things than the flesh-pots of Egypt. Unfortunately 
for him, when in a former incarnation the opportunity 
for his spiritual growth had come to him, he had gazed 
longingly at the heights; but, allured by the glamor 
of things of the earth—earthy, he had allowed the 
favorable occasion to slip by. Now, due to his un¬ 
wise choice, in this incarnation he had the intense long¬ 
ing, but no practical training which would enable him 
to gain the knowledge he desired of spiritual things, 
and their relation to mundane happenings. In other 


296 


SOULS IN HELL 


words: he was a psychic , not an occultist; a dreamer 
of strange dreams, but without the scientific training 
which would have given him the power to read the 
meaning of his dreams. 

Owing to his limitations, he could not correlate the 
“effects” with their “causes.” Although aware—intui- 
tionally—of the Law of Justice—the Law of Karma, 
practically he could not trace the happenings in his 
work-a-day world back to their antecedents in the 
higher planes; therefore, he was discontented and un¬ 
happy. 

Capable of doing more important work, by the forc« 
of circumstances (his thoughts, actions and desires in 
previous lives) he was kept with his nose to the grind¬ 
stone, writing short stories of flimsy, melodramatic 
type for his bread and butter. 

In his time he had tried many and various occupa¬ 
tions. He had been a wanderer on the face of the 
earth ever since he had run away from home, a mere 
youth full of the wanderlust, and shipped as cabin- 
boy on board an old tramp hooker plying between 
Boston and the Far East. On his first voyage, th 
ship was bound for China and Australia. By the 
time he reached Sydney, he had had enough of the 
sea—enough to last him for some time; so he roamed 
about in the interior of the country, going from town 
to town, doing anything and everything from clerking 
to bar-tending. 

A longing for his native soil finally brought him 
back to this country; travelling by devious routes 
which took him through Europe and part of Africa. 
Landing in San Francisco, he bought a miner’s out¬ 
fit and joined the long line of men bitten by the “gold 


SOULS IN HELL 


297 


bug.” Wrecked in the icy waters outside Nome, and 
losing everything he possessed except his money-belt 
and tent—which he recovered from the water, he con¬ 
cluded that success for him was not to be found with 
a pick and shovel in the Klondike gold fields. 

Gradually, he made his way across the continent 
to land in an eight by twelve room in an artists’ studio 
building, where he banged on a typewriter from early 
evening till early morning; turning his experiences into 
short stories of hair-raising excitement, to be read by 
spindle-shanked office clerks and anaemic stenographers 
who lived and experienced (while the story lasted) 
all the fierce joys and thrills of the red-blooded, hairy- 
chested, heavily-muscled heroes, and fearless, passion¬ 
ate, Amazonian heroines in their numerous exploits of 
primeval life conjured up by his vivid and fertile im¬ 
agination. 

About a year ago, he struck a slightly different 
vein in his stories. Convinced that he was not “get¬ 
ting anywhere” with what he called his “punk rubbish” 
—which he put in the same category as the “pretty 
girl” magazine cover,—he began seriously meditating 
on what would be the final outcome. 

“A nice occupation for a full-grown, healthy man, 
—doing woman’s work. Namby-pamby, kiss-me-pretty 
truck!” He snorted in disgust. “Darn it! The or¬ 
dinary laborer digging ditches or planting spuds is 
doing something useful, while I—” His face puckered 
into an expression of scorn. “And I flatter myself 
that I am above the common herd!—prostituting my 
God-given talents—to feed my belly and clothe my 
body and keep a roof over my head! Pah! Is that 
all the use I am? Is that all my brain is good for? 


298 


SOULS IN HELL 


And to keep doing it until I turn my toes up to the 
daisies? Whew!” He banged his old corn-cob pipe 
against the edge of the table to empty it of the 
ashes, and, at the same time, give emphasis to his 
feelings. 

One result of his self-analysis was: he resolved that 
his stories should not only interest his readers, but, 
in future, should bear a moral lesson of some kind. 
He had often thought of it before, and had made 
tentative attempts along that line; and while he had, 
in his personal affairs, welcomed anything pertaining 
to spiritual things and the “higher thought,” yet, in 
his literary work, he had bowed to the advice of his 
editors;—which was to the effect that the public 
wanted entertainment, not sermons. 

His resolve had attracted to him a “helper” who, 
working on the higher planes of being for the benefit 
of the “orphan”—Humanity, took advantage of Tra¬ 
cy’s psychic temperament and sensitiveness to throw 
into his mind ideas and plots for stories that would 
give him the opportunity of bringing valuable spiri¬ 
tual teachings to the notice of his readers. (Revers¬ 
ing the process of sugaring the pill by putting a pill 
in the sugar). So full was he of this new resolve, 
and also of appreciation for the aid given him by his 
unseen collaborator (for he recognized that the new 
ideas came from a higher source than his brain; being 
too clever and original for his mentality to originate), 
that he proceeded to make the life of Cogan—and 
other editors—miserable; begging to be allowed to 
try out the ideas if only as an experiment. When it 
is understood that most of the editors of the maga¬ 
zines he wrote for insisted on cutting out everything 


SOULS IN HELL 


299 


pertaining to psychic matters, even going so far—in 
one instance—as putting a ban on the word “psychic,” 
his lack of success with the man of the blue pencil 
was not at all surprising. 

Cogan was a fair sample of that sort of editor. 

“I tell you, Tracy, people who read magazines are 
the same people who go to the theatres; and they 
read the mags for the same reason that they go to 
see a show! They want to be amused and enter¬ 
tained, not to be preached at. When people want 
to listen to a sermon—which isn’t very often, they 
go to church. You take my tip, old scout: give them 
plenty of blood and fighting with some sentimental 
love-mush judiciously thrown in as you have done all 
along, and your stuff will find a market; but if 
you talk about spiritual things, or sermonize, I’ll have 
shoals of letters from my readers telling me to ‘can’ 
you. They’ll tell me dam quick that I am not sup¬ 
posed to be running a Sunday School magazine.” 

Such was the advice given Tracy; which made the 
writer hot and angry. 

“Say> Cogan,” he replied, eyeing the editor commis- 
erately, “you fellows give me an awful pain! You sit 
in your chairs, and imagine that you have your fingers 
on the public’s pulse, when all the while you are about 
ten years behind the times! You learn your trade 
of editing when you are young, and then you stop 
growing instead of keeping pace with the rest of hu¬ 
manity. Apparently, you don’t give your readers 
credit for having a very high order of mentality.” 

Cogan laughed good-naturedly. “Sure, Mike,”— 
ironically, “that’s the reason the boss is paying me 
my salary—because I am such a dub! Why, you old 


800 


SOULS IN HELL 


scarecrow, don’t you know that we fellows are always 
looking for new stuff ...” 

“Ye-ah! You say you are,” Tracy broke in; “but 
when a chap like myself comes along with something 
different, you turn me down—flat!” 

“When I said ‘new,’ I didn’t mean crazy stuff, such 
as you want to inflict on me.” 

“Huh! What does your ‘new’ stuff amount to, any¬ 
way? Nothing! Absolutely nothing different from 
the stuff of ten or twenty years ago. If there is a 
difference, it consists in being more superficially clever; 
more snappy sentences, more slang, more sophisticated 
sex talk with the accent on the lingerie , and a closer 
approach to the limits of decency. That’s the only 
difference I can see.” 

The editor shrugged his shoulders. He did not 
feel like arguing the point. 

“Only a few weeks ago,” continued Tracy, full of 
his subject, “I gave Wingal a detective story to read. 
It was darned good, too. He turned it down. Do you 
know why?” 

“Oh, I can give a shrewd guess! I suppose you 
threw in a lot of your talk on spiritual development, 
pointing out the awful result of ... ” 

“Not at all! Not a scrap! I opened my story 
with two of the minor characters, which, according to 
his notions, was wrong. He said the best way,—in 
fact, the only way, was to start with the two most 
prominent characters and establish them in the readers’ 
minds.” 

“That’s one of the advantages of taking a course in 
a School of Journalism!” interjected the editor, paren¬ 
thetically. 


SOULS IN HELL 


SOI 


“I pointed out to him—and the same thing applies 
to you, Cogan—that he had asked for a new treat¬ 
ment, a new twist, and now when I gave it to him the 
skate wanted it done in the same old conventional 
way.” 

“I am not answerable for Wingal and his damphool 
notions,” Cogan replied cheerfully. “If it was O. K. 
otherwise, and fitted in with our policy, I wouldn’t 
turn it down on that account. Not by a long shot!” 

“Perhaps not,” retorted Tracy doubtfully, “but you 
would find some other objection quite as absurd. Now, 
concerning this spiritual talk of mine which you call 
‘crazy,’ ...” 

“Back to the same old gag! Say, Tracy, you are 
getting dippy over that stuff! For the Lord’s sake, 
what’s the matter with you, anyhow? Aren’t you 
satisfied to go along as you have been doing, giving 
the public what they want, and ...” 

“Huh! That’s just the point!” the writer exclaimed 
heatedly. “You think the people want and prefer the 
punk they get, when the truth is, they take it be¬ 
cause we don’t give them better stuff, and they must 
have something to read.” 

“Well . . . that is your opinion.” 

“It isn’t only my opinion; it is a fact! Why . . . 
only the other day—coming down in the Subway, I 
overheard a conversation between two poorly dressed 
ginks from the East Side, one of them with RUM- 
SEY’S in his fist, and what do you think they were 
saying?” 

“The good Lord only knows,” responded Cogan, 
yawning. “Probably cooking up some scheme to skin 
us poor devils of Gentiles.” 


302 


SOULS IN HELL 


“They were actually deploring the low grade of 
literature in the popular magazines!” 

“I guess they were high-brows in disguise,” laughed 
Cogan. “Anyway, I quite agree with them; even if 
they were Bolsheviki.” 

“Then why not let me try my stuff out?” pressed 
Tracy, anxiously. “If only as an experiment.” 

“Because they would not fall for it, old chap,” re¬ 
plied the editor, positively. “You take it from me, old 
man: what the dear public wants are legshows, melo¬ 
drama with lots of thrills, movies full of crazy stunts 
such as jumping off high cliffs, train wrecks, aero¬ 
plane accidents, handsome young fellows rescuing the 
doll-faced sweethearts from the low-browed hairy-chest¬ 
ed villain, or movies whose star is a dame with a rot¬ 
ten reputation—the worse it is the better for the 
box office—playing in scenes that will give her a chance 
to show as much of her flesh as she can without be¬ 
ing pulled in for indecent exposure.” He puffed vig¬ 
orously at his cigar to keep it alight. “Go down 
Broadway any old day you like, and notice which 
theatres are doing the biggest business. Sex plays 
and melodrama! Plays whose only raison d’etre is 
showing mix-ups in bedrooms and other private places. 
And the more suggestive and rotten the truck is, the 
better the people like it; more especially if there are 
posters in the lobby showing girls in pajamas in a bed¬ 
room, or big-busted, thick-legged women with as few 
clothes on as the law allows. You remember that film 
they’d spent so much money on—I forget the name, 
which they showed in one of the theatres near Forty- 
Second Street? It was a dead failure until some slick 
duck had the brilliant idea of putting on the stage 


SOULS IN HELL 


303 


a bunch of real-to-goodness live bathing girls in scanty 
one-piece bathing costumes which were skin-tight; then 
—psst!—the mob swamped the place—actually wrecked 
the box-office in the crush, and they had to call out 
the Police Reserves to maintain order! I tell you, 
Tracy: the majority of human beings are cattle, still 
in the animal stage, with a very thin veneer of pre¬ 
tence to hide their animality.” 

“Gee! I’d hate to accept Broadway as being rep¬ 
resentative of this great and glorious country of mine, 
and of the hundreds, nay, thousands of clean-minded, 
clean-living men and women,” said Tracy, violently 
dissenting; “but since you are willing, let me remind you 
that the morality play, ‘ Everybody 9 was not only a 
huge success on Broadway, but is still running and go¬ 
ing strong; being played to full houses throughout the 
country. It was an expensive production, so there 
must be a raft of people who enjoy that spiritual 
preachment—otherwise the play would have been 
shelved long ago.” 

“Oh, I guess they go because of its novelty, but our 
readers don’t want any moralizing in their stories; 
they want straight stuff.” 

“Yeh, that’s exactly what all the editors of the even¬ 
ing papers told Reeder when he proposed writing a 
couple of sticks every evening along the higher thought 
lines. So he offered to do it for a month without pay 
—as an experiment, and then stop; if the readers 
asked for more, he was to be paid and taken on as a 
regular member of the staff. The result was: he did 
that kind of stuff for two solid years; and when ho 
quit to write a book, the paper got hold of Dr. Blaine 
to continue the column. He has practically made the 


304 


SOULS IN HELL 


paper with his column, and his stuff is syndicated all 
over the country. That’s the answer to your Broad¬ 
way argument!” He leaned over and helped himself 
to one of his friend’s cigars, and lighting it, strolled 
over to the window to allow his talk to sink in. 

Cogan sat turning the matter over in his mind. 
He was aware that interest was growing rapidly in this 
so-called “higher-thought,” but surmised that its 
growth was due to its being a fad and a novelty, 
which would die out as thousands of other fads had. 
Judging the great mass of Americans by the hetero¬ 
geneous hodge-podge—mostly hyphenates—in New 
York City, whose distinctive marks of political wire¬ 
pulling, revolutionary tendencies of a wild and anar¬ 
chistic sort, un-moral and im-moral characteristics of 
the Orientalistic peoples who loomed large in the city’s 
affairs, peoples whose ideals resided in their cerebel¬ 
lums and connected in a straight line with their bel¬ 
lies, Cogan imagined that the people in the other 
parts of the country were tarred with the same brush; 
the New Yorker being so prone to think of his city 
as the only one worth taking into consideration. Know¬ 
ing that New York is the metropolis of business of the 
Eastern part of the country, he took it for granted 
that it was, also, the metropolis of the thought, the 
virtues, the learning, the ideals, and the clean living 
(that were the basic fundamentals on which our great 
men had erected the edifice of our American civiliza¬ 
tion) ; instead of being, what it really is, the byword 
of all the civilized nations, and the scorn of all the 
rest of the country. 

He didn’t for a moment believe that there was a 
great and ever growing greater number of persons 


SOULS IN HELL 


305 


who were turning to the study of higher thought be¬ 
cause they, imbued with the scientific spirit of the age, 
desired more exact data regarding spiritual matters 
than they were able to get in the orthodox church 
teachings and pulpits. 

Not possessing the scientific love of “facts, facts, 
and yet more facts,” he was perfectly content to go 
to church fairly regularly (if only as a good example 
to others), listen to the preacher’s comments on the 
text chosen, and ... let it go at that. Why other 
folks could not “let it go at that” instead of worry¬ 
ing themselves crazy about matters of the other world 
he could not understand! Physical existence with its 
friendships, its “good times,” its loves and hates, its 
struggles and prizes, interested him very much more 
than matters of a future life. Whenever he did hap¬ 
pen to think of it—when it was forced on his atten¬ 
tion, he knew of course that he would, some time, have 
to “turn up his number twelves to the daisies” (as he 
humorously put it), but he sincerely hoped that the 
time for that was still a long way off; then ... as 
soon as he could ... he turned to other and more 
pleasant thoughts. 

When Cogan, deeply cogitating, glanced at Tracy 
staring dreamily out of the window, and noticed his 
care-worn, tired-looking face, its skin furrowed with 
countless fine lines, a wave of sympathy came over 
him. 

‘He is a good old scout,’ he thought, ‘even if he 
is a bit batty on that higher thought rubbish.’ 

His generous nature prompted him to give the writer 
a chance, and to let him try a story along the lines 
suggested. He weighed the question judicially, for, 


306 SOULS IN HELL 

V y' \-i ,?v.- • ! ">' J J&0 ' ‘'V -i , ; .A - . £ 

as he reminded himself, it was his boss’ money he wan 
spending not his own, so personal likes and dislikes 
ought not to influence him. ‘He is getting on in years, 
poor old chap, and even if the thing didn’t pan out 
right, he would feel all the better for having been 
given the opportunity. Anyhow’—he ruminated, ‘even 
if it was a fizzle, I could stand the racket with the 
old man; and . . . I’m used to that!’—with a grim 
smile. 

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Tracy, old scout!” he 
said, swinging his swivel chair to face the writer. 

Tracy slowly turned, a faraway look in his eyes, 
and a soft glow of rapture on his face as though he 
had been communing with beings of a higher plane , 

“I’ll give you your chance! You write a yam 
along the lines you wish, but for goodness sake, keep 
the soft pedal down on the spiritual stuff. Go easy 
with the crazy talk.” 

“Do you really mean that?” Tracy asked joyfully. 

“Wait now! Wait till I finish,” advised the editor. 
“This is the proposition: If it gets more knocks than 
bouquets from my readers, you are not to get a red 
cent; but if there are fewer kicks than encomiums, you 
get your usual rates. How does that strike you?” 

“I’ll go you on that proposition,” cried the writer, 
grabbing his hat and holding out his hand to Cogan. 
“I’ll get busy right away!” 

“All right, but go easy now, and don’t forget . . . 
the soft pedal,” Cogan reminded him as he was clos¬ 
ing the door. “Hm, hm! This is where I get a 
calling down from the boss, I suppose,” he muttered. 
“Oh, well,” he sighed, “what’s the difference? Old 
Tracy looked as happy as if I had given him a mil- 


SOULS IN HELL 307 

lion dollars!” He scratched his head with his blue 
pencil, at a loss to understand why the writer looked 
so pleased. 

How blind we mortals sometimes are! 





Into the story which Tracy wrote was injected in 
a seemingly unconscious way a running commentary 
of a philosophical and moralizing turn of thought on 
the actions of the characters. When he submitted it 
for Cogan’s verdict, the editor after reading it turned 
a look of surprise on Tracy. 

“I thought you were going to put some higher 
thought stuff in the yarn,” he remarked. Like lots 
of others he did not recognize it except when it was 
labelled clearly, or appeared in publications devoted 
to that kind of literature. 

Tracy smiled, and scratched the back of his ear. 

“Got cold feet, eh?” the editor asked. “It is just 
as well, for it is a darned good story, and as good a* 
you have ever done, and it would be a pity to spoil 
it with your crazy obsession.” 

“Awfully glad you like it,” murmured Tracy, softly. 

When the usual batch of letters began to come in 
from those readers who took it upon themselves to 
act as critics—damning or praising the various contri¬ 
butions in the magazine, the editor sat up and rubbed 
his eyes. Not only did most of his correspondents 
praise the handling of the story, commenting favor¬ 
ably on the high character and tone running through 


308 


SOULS IN HELL 


the narrative, but actually wanted more and of the 
same kind of “higher thought.” 

“What’s the matter with them?” queried Cogan, as 
he read letter after letter. “They must be as looney 
as old Tracy himself! I didn’t spot any high thought 
stuff in it! Here is one duck and . . . two, three, four 
of them using the same phrase, ‘high spiritual tone of 
the writing.’ Can you beat it?” 

Tracy was elated when the comments on his story 
were shown to him. 

“Of course, I hate to rub it into you, Cogan, old 
fellow, but . . . didn’t I tell you? I knew how it would 
be! People are just hungry for spiritual things.” 

“All right,” Cogan agreed. “If they want it, we 
will give it to them. They’ll be pleased, you’ll be 
pleased, and I guess the old man won’t kick if the 
subscription list swells out a bit. So, go to it, old 
scout, and give us all you can.” 

Which was easier said than done! 

Authors must sleep sometime, and Tracy was not 
as young as he used to be in the days when he could 
sit plugging away at his typewriter for three con¬ 
secutive days and nights; keeping himself up to the 
mark with copious draughts of black coffee. 

Black coffee, the good old standby of the brain 
worker, is useful for stimulating the brain-machinery; 
but it is not the best thing in the world for renewing 
and building up the nerve and brain cells. As with 
all stimulants, there inevitably comes the reaction, when 
the great Universal Law demands repayment (as it 
does in the moral as well as in the physical world) ; 
a demand which always comes, seemingly, at the most 


SOULS IN HELL 


309 


inopportune time and when we are least able to pay. 
Hence the ills that soul and body are subject to. 

Now, Tracy took up his work with a new zest. 

Most of the time he himself did not know now the 
story was going to end; for he could not always guess 
from the way the plot developed what the denouement 
and climax would be. All through his stories ran an 
undercurrent of moralizing which Cogan shied at, but 
which the readers enjoyed; and this unconventional 
style of his gave Tracy a reading public of his own, 
and who bought the magazine principally because of 
his tales. The circulation mounted steadily, making 
him a favored contributor with the publisher—the 
“boss,” as Cogan, the editor, called him; a qualification 
the writer found of great value, inasmuch as he could 
always get money “on account” while he was writing 
the story. 

Although Tracy worked as hard as any army mule, 
he never had any money! It seemed as if he could 
not save even a dollar for the proverbial rainy day, 
and he couldn’t understand why. Other fellows who 
did not make as much as he did, had their six and 
eight cylinder machines, lived in high-priced apart¬ 
ments, belonged to expensive clubs, and travelled round 
with a high-toned, extravagant bunch while he was 
constantly on the ragged edge. He did not tumble to 
the fact that he did not know how to take care of 
number one—himself. 

He had the foolish habit of shoving his hand into 
his pocket and giving what was generally his last dol¬ 
lar to anyone who asked for help. Not only was his 
pocket-book at the service of those who were in need, 
but also his valuable time. “Tracy’s Home for Down 


310 SOULS IN HELL 

1 . .< ' T '\A- ( - t ■ 


and Outs”—as his room was dubbed by his intimates—- 
had the latch-string always hanging out with a wel¬ 
come for all who needed a helping hand. He had a 
standing arrangement with a few of his patients—as 
as he humorously named them—who generally did not 
know where tomorrow’s meals were coming from, to 
call on him for the wherewithal. If he did not hap¬ 
pen to have the necessary dollar, he borrowed it from 
one of his artist friends who was in funds. Some 
of his more materially inclined acquaintances told him 
he was a poor business man, others advised him not to 
be so “easy,” while some went still further and said 
he was a “sucker,” a “plain damn fool;”—but Tracy 
only smiled. 


He had an ambition all his own. 


He zmnted to be a Helper! 

Intuitively, he was confident that to be a Helper 
on the spiritual planes of being, he first had to prove 
his worthiness by being a Helper on the Earth-plane. 
He guessed that in past time—in previous lives—he 
had thrown away his opportunities for spiritual growth, 
which was the reason for his present psychic limita¬ 
tions ; therefore he contemptuously passed by most of 
the material things his fellows imagined spelled “suc¬ 
cess” as being of little or no value, and devoted his 
energies to developing his soul-powers. 

As a consequence of his openhandedness, he frequent¬ 
ly found himself in difficulties; more especially with 
his landlord. This man could not make out why it 
was that Tracy—making so much money, as he sur¬ 
mised—was always broke. With his worldly-wise acu¬ 
men, he guessed that the writer was either a gambler 


SOULS IN HELL 


311 


or—which was most likely as he was a bachelor—he 
was spending his money on women. 

His monthly visits to the author being invariably 
met with the request to “come again in a day or so,’ 1 
the landlord finally came to the conclusion that it was 
time he put the screws on Tracy to make him pay his 
rent on the first of the month like other decent folk. 
He had more than enough trouble of that sort with his 
artist tenants, but as their studios brought in much 
higher rents than did the other rooms (because they 
had skylights), and could only be rented to other 
artists on account of the skylights being of no extra 
value to any other kind of tenant, he had to stand 
for a whole lot from that harum-scarem crew. With 
Tracy it was a different matter. His room could be 
rented to almost anybody, so the landlord was not 
obliged to humor his vagaries in the matter of rent. 

The day on which Tracy’s rent was due had come 
and gone five days ago; so the landlord thought the 
time had arrived to put his foot down. 

The author w°s lying on his lounge, smoking his 
old corn-cob, ai d wondering when his unseen Helper 
would assist him with another plot. He needed one, 
and needed it badly. Hearing a knock on the door, 
he yelled “Come in!” The door opened, and the 
landlord walked in. He gazed with a frown at Tracy 
taking his ease when he ought to be working like other 
people; his notion of “work” being something done 
with the hands—something visible. “He’s put in the 
night somewheres, I’ll bet, and now he’s resting up,” 
was the clever deduction of the profiteer. 

“Oh! Howdy do?” said Tracy lazily, when he saw 


312 


SOULS IN HELL 


who his visitor was. “Again after the filthy lucre, 
I suppose—eh?” 

“It’s overdue a week now,” the landlord announced 
stiffly. 

The author yawned as he made a quick mental cal¬ 
culation. 

“Not a week! Five days—to be precise,” he re¬ 
plied. 

“Well, that’s five days too much, and I can’t wait 
any longer! The rent is due on the first.” 

The author closed his eyes wondering which of his 
friends would be the most likely to strike for a loan 
of a few dollars to tide him over until he got another 
plot. The landlord took his action as meaning indif¬ 
ference, and it made him angry. 

“You don’t seem to worry about it very much, Mr. 
Tracy,” he growled, frowning. 

“Worry? Why should I worry, old chap?” Tracy 
replied with a twinkle in his eyes. “It’s your worry, 
not mine.” 

“Oh! it is, huh? Well all I’ve got to say is: if 
the rent isn’t in my office by six o’clock this evening, 
I want your room!” 

“Now look here. I am awfully sorry to keep you 
waiting; but, hang it, you always seem to land here 
when the exchequer is high and dry. I am too good a 
tenant for you to chuck out, for you always get your 
money sooner or later; so you give me until noon to¬ 
morrow, and I’ll see if I can scare up the money some¬ 
where.” 

The irate landlord reflected that what the author 
said about his always getting the money, even if it was 
late, was true. He was honest, anyhow, even if he was 


SOULS IN HELL 


Sl c d 


careless in money matters; and, who knew, perhaps 
the next tenant would be still worse. Lots of them 
failed to pay, and when he haled them to court, the 
scamps would give the magistrate some cock-and-bull 
story of the room needing decorating, or the plumbing 
was out of order and the room was not habitable, or 
the gas-pipes leaked and the landlord would not have 
them fixed,—the durned rips had more tricks up their 
sleeves than one could count in a year; and the end 
of it would be that he had to dispossess them,—which 
cost four dollars at least, and meant from five to ten 
days before he could get . them thrown out. Even when 
he was successful in doing that, in some cases he had 
to pay the expense of the moving—in order to make 
room for the incoming tenant! 

Landlords, like the rest of struggling humans, are 
alive to the fact that a bird in the hand is worth 
a whole covey in the woods, and this particular prof¬ 
iteer was no exception. 

“Well ... all right,” he said, gruffly; “tomorrow 
noon. But I can’t see why you can’t come across with 
the rent on the first as well as on the seventh or four¬ 
teenth.” 

“Ah! There are lots of things you cannot see,” 
Tracy retorted, with a significant nod. “We all have 
our limitations—unfortunately.” 

The landlord’s fund of repartee was not equal to 
the occasion, so he gave vent to his feelings by shut¬ 
ting the door with a bang, and went to interview his 
next victim. 

Tracy arose from his lounge, dreamily buttoning 
his vest, wondering if his credit was good enough with 
Cogan’s boss to strike him for an advance. Hitherto, 


314 


SOULS IN HELL 


he had been successful in getting money on account 
because he had submitted a synopsis of his proposed 
story; which, being O. K’d by Cogan, had served as 
an excuse for asking the favor. Now, in his present 
need, he was not so sure of being able to raise the 
wind, for he hadn’t even the ghost of a plot—to say 
nothing of a synopsis—to submit. He grinned with 
amusement as he meditated on his dilemna. 

“Well, Ikey, me old stick-in-the-mud,”—examining 
his small change to see if he had the necessary car¬ 
fare, “you are up against it this trip, for sure. 
You’ll have to try to make bricks without straw, this 
time, me old chippie! Oh, well,” he thought, putting 
on his coat, “perhaps some Moses will come along 
and take me out of the land of bondage. He will be 
more than welcome—a month’s holiday camping out 
in the woods, and listening to the dickie birds would 
do me a lot of good.” 

He started on his journey downtown to interview 
the “boss.” 

When he had seated himself comfortably in the car, 
he opened the “extra” he had bought from a newsboy 
yelling, “All about the shocking murder! Celebrated 
actor killed! Wuxtry! Wuxtry!” 

Taking in the flaring headlines at a glance, Tracy 
skimmed over the sensational and floridly written re¬ 
port, picking out the facts. His eye was arrested by 
a paragraph which said that the murderer, who was 
caught red-handed, was Jack Waller, the daring young 
aviator recently returned from France, the brother- 
in-law of the well-known editor of the Manhattan 
Short Story Magazme —Mr. Tom Cogan. Giving a 
whistle of surprise, his jaw dropped as he read the 


SOULS IN HELL 


315 


words; for he perceived what a very inopportune 
time he had chosen to inflict his troubles on the editor 
—when the poor fellow had to bear this terrible blow. 

“Gee whiz!” he muttered under his breath. “That 
is tough! Poor old Tom! Ten to one he won’t be 
there today, now that this has happened.” 

But, as usual when he was in doubt of what his 
next step should be, he followed his “hunch”—as he 
called it. Instead of getting off the car, and trying 
to borrow money from one of his other friends, he felt 
that he ought to go to Cogan’s office, if only to leave 
a message of sympathy for him. 


'J». 


Fortunately for Tracy (and, as the events following 
proved, fortunately for Cogan) the editor was in his 
office when Tracy arrived there. After calling to see 
Jack in his cell at the Police Station for a short half 
hour he had come up to the city; for there were some 
matters that demanded his editorial attention, and 
which could not be postponed. When he got to his 
office, he was greeted with expressions of sympathy; 
everybody in the place having heard the dreadful 
news. 

His “boss”—the publisher—briefly intimated that he 
had read the account in the “extra” and noticing his 
careworn face, told him to let the sub-editor attend to 
everything possible, and to take the day off. He was 
kind enough to say, too, that whenever Cogan felt 


316 


SOULS IN HELL 


disposed to tell him the inside details, he would find 
time to listen to them. 

“You will need a lawyer, and a good one,” the pub¬ 
lisher said; “so, when you are ready to talk about 
it, let me know. I can put you next to a slick firm 
of lawyers. I don’t know how you are fixed financially, 
but it is barely possible I can help you in that direc¬ 
tion, too. Anyhow, if you want help of any sort, re¬ 
member, you come to me . . . first!” 

This coming from a man who had the reputation in 
the publishing trade of being as close as the bark on 
a ti-ee- and about as cold-blooded in a business deal 
as one could find in a day’s march, took Cogan com¬ 
pletely off his feet. So far as his previous dealings 
with his boss were concerned, Cogan could honestly 
concur in the opinion current among magazine men; 
—which was that every time he handled a dollar, the 
eagle let out a scream of protest—he squeezed it so 
unmercifully! 

He was so surprised at his employer’s generosity, he 
looked at him in blank amazement. 

The publisher’s grim visage loosened into the sem¬ 
blance of a cracked smile when he saw Cogan’s aston¬ 
ishment. 

‘T know the reputation I’ve got, Cogan, but some¬ 
times the hardest shells have inside them the softest 
kernels. I meant what I told you just now, but . . . 
not necessarily for publication. My reputation of be¬ 
ing a skinflint is, in a way, a sort of protection to me; 
like the birds and animals change their colors to match 
the ground they are on- Self-coloration I think they 
call it; don’t they? Anyway, it acts the same in my 
case; so ... . keep what I said to yourself.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


317 


Gulping down the lump in his throat, Cogan tried 
to stammer his thanks and appreciation for the prof¬ 
fered help, but his boss stopped him. 

“Cut out the hurrah, Cogan; I don’t want your 
thanks! You are Irish and I am a Jew; but I guess 
there isn’t very much difference in the color of our 
blood after all.” 

The editor grabbed his employer’s fat hand impul¬ 
sively, and squeezed it so hard that the publisher 
looked ruefully at the marks his rings made on his 
soft flesh. 

“Himmel!” he ejaculated, his face all puckered. 
“No wonder you Irishers are scrappers. Must have 
been a prize fighter in your family!” 

For the first time in many years, Cogan’s ready 
wit and speech failed him. 


XXIV 


When Tracy walked into the “boss’ ” room, the 
publisher had his work-a-day, hard facial expression 
in good working order. It was, as he had informed 
Cogan, his natural defence against his competitors and 
enemies, who would have been very much surprised 
to learn that the hard shell outside was not a true 
index of the real man inside, and sadly belied his real 
character. 

His fight for a place in the sun had left its scars 
on his outside, but the inside man was overflowing 
with peace and goodwill to all men. Unknown even 
to his immediate relatives, he spent considerable sums 
of money in charity. He was the unknown founder 
of the “ Non-Sectarian Hospital for Children ” which 
was open to all children irrespective of creed, color, or 
race. His particular hobby was giving money to chari¬ 
table organizations with the proviso that the donor’s 
name would not be made public until after his death. 
In the moments when he knew his meditations would 
not be disturbed, he would put his feet on his desk, 
sit down deep in his chair—on the back of his neck, 
as the saying goes,—half close his eyes, and mentally 
go over the list of his many benefactions. He would 
chortle with an almost childish glee when he thought 
of the proviso he insisted on. 

318 


SOULS IN HELL 


319 


“Holy smokes, but that’ll be rich! When they find 
out that the old skinflint, Abie Isaacs the fat Jew, 
is the man that’s given ’em the dough!”—with a laugh 
that sounded like a corn-crake clearing its throat. 
“That the despised East Side ‘kike’ was big enough 
to help everybody—Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and 
Protestants, Christians as well as Infidels! Won’t that 
be great? Shouldn’t wonder but what they’ll put up a 
monument for me, with my pretty face sculptured on 
it by one of their high-priced sculptors. Gee!”—the 
idea tickled him immensely—“I’ll have to get a new 
picture of myself, nicely retouched, so as to look well 
on the monument.”—And then he would rub his fat 
hands together, and shake his sides for joy. 

A peculiar form of obsession, albeit one which could 
be imitated by the people who are so busy talking 
about charity that they have no time to practice it. 

Friend Tracy, the author, stood ace high in his 
innermost heart. Not merely as a result of the in¬ 
creased circulation due to the popularity of his stories 
—as Cogan surmised, but because—first—he was glad 
to see that Tracy had the courage of his convictions, 
and was willing to stand or fall by them; secondly: he 
himself had studied deeply along the same lines, delv¬ 
ing into the old Jewish Rabbinical literature which was 
full of this so-called new higher thought. He knew 
that the teaching of re-embodiment (called in these 
days, re-incamation) was a fundamental teaching 
among the Jews; and, as he discovered later in his 
study of the subject, had been an accepted dogma for 
five centuries in the Early Christian Church. So 
Tracy’s line of thought and ideas tickled him beyond 
expression. Not that he ever allowed the author 


320 


SOULS IN HELL 


to guess for a moment that such was the case. Oh, 
no! That would not have been in keeping with the 
peculiar twist in his make-up of hiding his real feel¬ 
ings inside his own breast. 

When the author entered the room to ask him for 
some money in advance, he found the publisher looking 
as sour and forbidding as ever. 

“Hullo, Tracy,” he greeted him gruffly; “what’s 
biting you this morning?” 

“Why ... I need some cash in a hurry—got a 
sudden call on me—need it very badly,” he reeled off. 

“Huh! Must think we’re made of money down 
here. What between the price of paper, and the inks 
going sky-high, and the printers wanting to be million¬ 
aires in a hurry, why ...” 

“Ye-eh, I know! I can repeat that little ditty back¬ 
wards, forwards and sideways,” said Tracy with a 
smile; “I have heard if often enough. Perhaps you 
would like to hear my song about how beans and 
coffee and rent and laundry and socks and tobacco 
have gone up in price.” 

“No, I know all about it! Anyway, I am busy this 
morning. How much is it this time?” 

“Only fifty dollars; that’s all,” replied Tracy, airily. 

“Huh!”—in mock astonishment. “Fifty dollars?” 

“That’s all. Letting you off easy this trip.” 

“Thats all? Only fifty dollars. Feefty thalers!” 
His face wrinkled grotesquely as he relapsed into the 
speech of his youth. “Mein Gott! What nerve-food 
are you taking now? I’d like to have some meinself 
—could use it in my peesness. Hmpf! Fifty dol¬ 
lars! Won’t forty do? We’re not so flush with money 
as you seem to think we are.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


321 


He peered through his thick glasses at the author. 
This sort of tilt was meat and drink to him, for he 
dearly loved bargaining. Also, he delighted to cam¬ 
ouflage his real, generous nature with the hard exter¬ 
ior of the tight-fisted money grabber. 

“No,” replied Tracy, to whom this sort of thing 
was nothing new, “forty wouldn’t go far enough; I 
need fifty.” 

“Well, if you need it as bad as all that, why ... I 
s’pose we’ll have to stretch a point; p’rhaps the bank 
will lend me some more money—to keep the bizness 
going. All right,”—with a deep sigh, “if you have 
a synopsis that Cogan says is O. K., I guess we can 
manage to let you have it . . . this time.” 

“Is Cogan here this morning?” the author asked, 
hardly believing his ears. 

“Yeh, but he won’t be here long. You’d better see 
him at once before he goes home.” 

Tracy thanked him, and left the office hurriedly. 
Running up the stairs to the next floor on which was 
the editorial room, he paused on the landing near the 
window, and tried to think of some excuse to give Co¬ 
gan, and so win his assistance in raising the needed 
fifty. 

As he gazed out over the canyon-like streets of 
lower New York, he felt the undefinable thrill, that al¬ 
ways announced the proximity of his Helper, come 
over him. If his psychic sense of sight had been 
opened, he would have seen his Helper accompanied 
by Benton standing at his side. 

A minute or so before, they had been in Cogan’s 
office, where the Helper had shown Benton how the 
man he had collaborated with was now suffering from 


322 


SOULS IN HELL 


the blow that had descended on him and his happy 
home. The actor was sincerely sorry, for he had taken 
a great liking to this big-hearted Irishman while work¬ 
ing together on the play. Cogan was such a guileless, 
childish nature—the opposite from Benton—that the 
actor had grown to almost admire those qualities in the 
editor which he himself sorely lacked. 

He responded splendidly to the Helper’s suggestion 
that he should uncover the true facts of his murder, 
however distasteful the recital might be to him. 

“Very well,” agreed Benton; “but how am I to tell 
him? Will he hear me if I talk to him? You remem¬ 
ber he couldn’t hear me in the Police Station.” 

“No, you cannot make him hear. His psychic 
faculties are not developed sufficiently to receive your 
message.” 

“Then how is he to get it? How am I to tell him?” 

“Outside, at the end of the corridor, is one of my 
many proteges; ‘patients’ I call them.” 

The actor looked at Him, surprised. “A patient, 
did you say?” 

The Helper nodded. “He needs some help at this 
moment; so we can help him and Cogan at the same 
time.” 

“How can he get it any more than Cogan?” 

“His psychic sight is not much further developed 
than Cogan’s; but his psychic sense of hearing is very 
acute. He will get it almost word for word.” 

The next instant, the actor found himself at the 
side of Tracy who was looking dreamily out of the 
window, and strumming his fingers on the sill. 

“Tell him briefly, the facts of your murder, and 
what led up to it” the Helper said. 


SOULS IN HELL 


333 


With a deep feeling of shame, Benton hesitatingly 
started telling Tracy; giving him a brief outline of the 
events which culminated in the tragedy. 

When the familiar thrill ran through him, Tracy 
searched in his pocket for paper and pencil. As Ben¬ 
ton’s words, delivered with all the actor’s intuitive 
sense of the dramatic value of the various situations 
in the narrative, impinged on Tracy’s psychic conscious¬ 
ness, the writer’s face beamed with joy, and he jotted 
down in shorthand as rapidly as possible the skeleton 
synopsis of what promised to be a very strong and 
unusual story. When he came to the end, he in¬ 
stinctively gazed upward, and inwardly gave thanks 
for the help. 

To his great amazement, Benton saw an exquisitely 
shaped pale-bhie light emanate from Tracy and attach 
itself to him. 

“Why . . . what is it?” he asked the Helper, won- 
deringly. 

“That is the thanks your patient gives you t his 
helper !’* 

Benton was spellbound at the spirituelle beauty of 
the form hovering close to him; quivering like a thing 
of life; sending out sparks of tremulous living light. 

“My!” he exclaimed breathlessly. “What a superb 
object! Perfectly gorgeous!” 

“Some call them ‘guardian angels,’ for they keep 
off evil influences,” the Helper explained. “A trifle 
more desirable than the other kind, is it not?” 

Benton shuddered as he recalled to his mind the 
other kind. 

“I don’t know how I shall ever repay you for all 
the help you have given me,” he said, gratefully. 


SOULS IN HELL 


324 

“Life is a totally different thing to me—now.” 

“If you do not know, I’ll tell you,” replied the 
Helper. “Keep on as you have begun —helping others. 
If poor, suffering Humanity could only believe that 
that is the only way to find real, lasting happiness, 
Earth would soon become the Paradise it used to be. 
What a glorious consummation to work for! The 
Golden Age when Heaven and Earth will be as one 
world; and men knowing themselves to be Gods—not 
merely intellectual animals—with wide-open spiritual 
sight, working in harmony with the greater and higher 
Gods of other spheres to make the whole Universe 
one vast orchestra of praise to Him in Whom we live, 
move, and have our being! Man has not even glimpsed 
the glory, the power, the beauty of his future which 
will be attained only after aeons of struggle. Let us, 
humble though our efforts be, do all we can to hasten 
the day of his attainment.” 


'J* 


Tracy entered the editorial room to find Cogan at 
his desk; looking years older. He grasped his hand 
silently, and pressed it. 

“You’ve heard all about it, I suppose,” said the 
editor, wearily. 

Tracy gave a nod. “Yes, and I need not tell you 
how sorry I am for you and your dear wife.” 

Cogan threw up his hands with a gesture of despair. 

“I don’t know in what way I can be of use to you in 
your trouble, old man, but if I can, please command 


SOULS IN HELL 


325 


me. I know I am not of much use to anybody, but I 
am yours as far as my poor abilities go.” 

“Thanks, Tracy, old scout,” Cogan replied sadly. 
“I am nearly distracted over the affair—at my wits* 
end. I ought to be chasing a lawyer at this very 
minute; but I’ve got to clear some of this truck first. 
How about my story, old man?” 

“I’ve got the synopsis here—in shorthand. I’ll 
read it to you. It will take only a few minutes, and 
it may help to take the other thing off your mind 
for the moment.” 

The editor leaned back in his chair, and listened while 
Tracy gave him the outline of the plot. When he had 
finished reading, Cogan with a sickly attempt at a 
smile asked. 

“Say, old scout; is this another of your inspira¬ 
tions ?” 

The writer smiled indulgently. “You can laugh 
as much as you like, old chap, but”—a reminiscent 
look came into his eyes —“it is!” 

“All right, old fellow. I don’t care whether you 
think it is or not. It’s darned good; and if you wish 
to help me, you’ll do me a very real favor if you’ll 
write that up to your usual standard. It will take 
that much load off my mind.” 

“You shall have it, old man. I’ll do my best on it 
—I promise you!” 

“I shall rely on your promise, so don’t fail me. 
I’ll give Ted, my sub: instructions to put it through 
if I don’t happen to be here when you turn it 
in.” 

“You may depend on me,” Tracy replied with a 
definite nod. “I’ll put my best licks on it, Cogan.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


326 

He got his fifty dollars in advance, and hurried up¬ 
town to stave off his landlord, and start on his story. 


Three days later, he turned in the completed story. 
When he entered the editorial room, he saw that 
Cogan’s desk was closed. 

“Hullo, Ted! How’s tricks?” he greeted the sub¬ 
editor. “I see the big chief’s not in.” 

“No, Mr. Tracy; and he may not be here for a 
couple of days. He is busy on his brother-in-law’s 
case.” 

“Too bad! Too bad!” muttered the writer, shaking 
his head sorrowfully. “Well, the poor chap has got 
into the trouble, and now he must face the music!”— 
he referred to Jack Waller. “It seems a sad ending 
though for such a promising young fellow. Oh, this 
dreadful war! It is turning men back into brutes; 
going downward instead of upward.” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” replied the sub-editor. “Thou¬ 
sands of men who thought of nothing else but mate¬ 
rial pleasures, slowly but surely deteriorating their 
soul-fibre, by answering the call of duty—to fight for 
principles and ideals, for home and country—have 
awakened to higher things. At least, that is my view 
of it.” 

“May be so,” said Tracy, doubtfully; “but why 
cannot men develop spiritually instead of all this 
bestial shedding of blood, and fighting like a pack of 
wolves ?” 


SOULS IN HELL 


327 


“Oh, well; so far as that is concerned, life itself 
is a battle—and a pretty fierce one.” 

“Yes ... in a sense,” agreed the writer; “but not 
with lethal weapons. Not with poison gas, shrapnel, 
bombs and bayonets!” 

The sub-editor gave a snort of amusement. “Huh! 
I don’t see very much difference between the methods 
of the battlefield and those of ordinary, everyday 
life.” 

“You don’t?” 

“No, I do not!” retorted the sub-editor, positively. 
“In warfare you have the spy to contend with, the 
man whom you trust as a friend, only to find that 
he has been spying on you, and discovering your weak¬ 
ness. In ordinary life, you take a man to your bosom 
as a friend, only to find that he abuses your friend¬ 
ship to further his own ends. You load him down 
with favors, lend him money, help him to his feet, 
only to discover that when he wins a footing and 
place, he passes you by, and probably repays your 
kindness by spreading false reports about you; returns 
your help with ingratitude.” 

“So you have had that experience, have you, 
Ted?” said the writer, a reminiscent look in his eyes. 

“I know what I am talking about, believe me!” said 
the sub, bitterly. “And again. We are horrified to 
read of the ‘Big Berthas’ throwing a shell that wipes 
out a dozen or so soldiers, or the number of lives lost 
on the Lusitania, or the Armenian atrocities; but 
nothing much is said when ‘Big Business’ wipes out 
a lot of small competitors without the slightest com¬ 
punction ; that juggles the prices of food, and boosts 
them so high that thousands of poor mothers and 


328 


SOULS IN HELL 


kiddies go through their miserable existence in a 
half-starved condition; and all because the miserly 
manipulators are greedy for more profits to swell their 
already full to bursting pocket-books! Talk of 
Belgium, and the poor starving people there! God! 
It hurts me to the quick every time I have to eat— 
thinking of those poor devils starving; but believe 
me, we have a Belgium right here in our own coun¬ 
try ! Men who don’t care a continental how many 
suffer from want of clothes and food, so long as they 
pile up their ill-gotten gains. We protest against the 
brutal, ‘kultured’ Huns’ malicious destruction of cathe¬ 
drals and such-like; but we are not much interested in 
the poor people who live in the vile, dirty tenements be¬ 
longing to one of our Church Corporations. The Huns 
destroy the temples and churches made by man; but 
our American Huns destroy the temples of the living 
God,—the people!” 

“Are you a Socialist, or an Anarchist, or what?” 
inquired Tracy, rather taken aback at the sub-editor’s 
outburst; so different from his usual light-hearted 
manner. 

“I do not belong to any cult or society, and I 
don’t bear a label of any sort whatever; but I am a 
man who tries to think for himself. Seeing all this 
abominable, selfish grabbing for things—which, I am 
glad to say, the grabbers will have to leave behind 
them—for years I wondered if there really was a 
Higher Power above us, ordering these things accord¬ 
ing to some plan that was unknown to us.” 

“Poor old Cogan would probably say that the ways 
of Providence are inscrutable; and that you shouldn’t 
waste your time thinking about such things.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


329 


“Perhaps so, Mr. Tracy, but I am not built that 
way. Having a brain to think with, I believe it is 
my duty to use it on that problem, just as other 
men use their brains on other problems. If there is 
a law underlying the phenomena, I think it is our 
bounden duty to try to discover it.” 

“Have you made any headway?” the author asked. 
“You know, that sort of thing has occupied some of 
the greatest intellects of our humanity.” 

“Yes, I think I have made a great discovery! In¬ 
deed, two discoveries.” 

“That so?” said Tracy. “I am very much inter¬ 
ested along those lines myself.” 

“Yes, of course. I know that from your stories. 
Well ... a couple of years ago, I accompanied a 
friend to a gymnasium, where he went through exer¬ 
cises trying to put some muscle on his bones. Sitting 
there, watching him and about a dozen others going 
through their stunts, straining like horses at machines, 
or lifting heavy weights, the sweat running off them 
in streams, I caught myself wondering why they did 
it. What was the use of it all?” 

“To build themselves up, of course,” interrupted 
Tracy. 

“Sure! But it struck me as being a shocking waste 
of time and energy, seeing that in a few short years 
their finely developed bodies would be food for worms, 
and that would be the end of them.” 

“Ah, yes! But is it the end of them?” 

“Yeh, that was the sticker! The nigger in the 
woodpile! While I was thinking it over, something 
I had read when I was a kid came into my mind. 


SOULS IN HELL 


330 

It had to do with punishments in vogue many years 
ago in the English Army.” 

“Yes? What was that?” asked the writer, on the 
alert for new data. 

“When they ran up against a particularly hard nut 
of a man who couldn’t be made to conform to the rules 
and regulations of the army by ordinary punishments, 
they used to take him out on the Parade ground, 
where, at one end, was a pile of the old-fashioned 
cannon balls built up in the form of a pyramid. His 
job was to take those heavy balls, one by one, from 
the pile, carry them to the other end of the parade 
ground, and build them up in a pyramid.” 

“To tire him out, eh?” 

“As soon as he had built up the new pile, he had to 
take them, one by one, and rebuild them on the spot 
from which he had taken them. They kept him at that 
pulling down and rebuilding until he broke down.” 

“Great Scott! Why, that would be enough to drive 
a man crazy! What was the idea ?” 

“The idea back of the punishment was: the man 
was doing something that he knew was absolutely use - 
less , and absolutely barren of results!” 

Tracy gave a wise nod as he caught the point of the 
illustration. 

“I see! And what was the result of your . . er . . . 
ratiocination?” 

“Well ... I figured that if what we were doing— 
struggling and suffering—had no reason, no design, 
no great scheme back of it all, we were the victims of 
one of the most damnable jokes that was ever per¬ 
petrated by the most devilish fiend from the bottom- 


SOULS IN HELL 


831 


less pit! It would be the same thing that the English 
soldier was up against, only on a much larger scale.” 

“Yes ... a fair inference, I think,” replied Tracy. 

“I figured out,” the sub-editor went on, “that as 
from the smallest bits of life right up to the planets 
and suns there was evidence of most marvellous de¬ 
signing, a most clever adjustment of the lives to their 
environment, there logically must be a Designer some¬ 
where back of the design; but so infinitely beyond our 
comprehension that it was but a waste of time, at our 
stage of the game, to even try to find out what IT 
is.” 

“Something like a microbe on the Washington monu¬ 
ment guessing as to the builder of it. Yes, I agree 
with you. But was that as far as you got?” 

“No, I went a step farther. I arrived at the con¬ 
viction that just as the athlete needed the various 
paraphernalia to develop his muscles, so the real, inner 
man—whom I concluded was a spirit, and not merely 
a set of bones and muscles,—the spiritual athlete de¬ 
veloped his spiritual attributes and his spiritual 
strength by struggling with, and straining against, 
the forces of evil and darkness; for, evidently, our 
real home isn’t here on earth, but in some spiritual 
world.” 

“You are to be congratulated on getting that far. 
That was a discovery well worth making,” said Tracy. 
“What was the other?” 

The sub-editor laughed as he recalled the incident. 

“I got good and hot under the collar one day in the 
boss’ office downstairs, and in the course of my heated 
remarks aired a few of my convictions.” 


332 


SOULS IN HELL 


“Which was like talking Greek or Choctaw to the 
old man!” 

“On the contrary! I was never more flabbergasted 
in my life! I fully expected to get the bounce, p. d. q. 
but instead, the boss said, ‘Are you interested along 
those lines of research?’ Just fancy the old man using 
decent English! The first time I ever heard him not 
maltreat the language. Well ... I told him I was 
interested; very much so. I tell you, I expected to get 
notice to quit right there and then; but no! He smiled 
that cracked smile of his and said he would like to 
see me the next day.” 

Tracy was all ears, and brimming with curiosity. 

“The next day he came up here, and handed me a 
book—one of his own, and told me to read it carefully, 
and if I wanted more of the same sort to let him know. 
Well ... to make a long story short, I have been de¬ 
vouring his books ever since; and believe muh, he’s got 
some library!” 

“You astound me! I shouldn’t have thought it of 
him. Well, well! But say, speaking of stories. Gee! 
I was forgetting all about it! Here is the one I 
promised Cogan. I think you will enjoy it.” 

He handed the manuscript to the sub-editor. 

“Is it up to your usual?” 

“It’s better!” replied Tracy, enthusiastically. “I 
think it is the best I’ve ever written.” 

“If that’s the case, I’ll skim through it and pass it 
on to the printer. Those were my instructions from 
the chief.” 

“All right, Ted,” replied the author. “Well, I am 
glad to have had this little chat with you, because I 
like to meet people who are thinking for themselves, 


SOULS IN HELL 


333 


and especially along those lines. Now I must be go¬ 
ing. I have so much to do, I hardly know where to 
begin; so—good bye.” 

All the way down in the elevator, Tracy chuckled 
to himself at the thought that “old skinflint Isaacs” 
was interested in spiritual matters. “What do you 
know about that? The old son of a gun!” he mut¬ 
tered, grinning quietly. “I’d never have guessed it. 
Well . . . ‘Judge not’,” he quoted, “for one never 
knows!” 


XXV 


Of the wearisome, soul-racking torture that Cogan 
and his wife went through during the weeks previous 
to the trial, one who is in the position of a mere on¬ 
looker cannot fully know or rightly estimate; and, 
supposing he could, an attempt to describe it in words 
would meet with failure. There are emotions of the 
soul so sacred, so intimate, so much the private prop¬ 
erty of the one experiencing them, it were a sacri¬ 
lege to uncover them in their nakedness to the gaze 
of the unsympathetic, curiosity-seeking multitude. 
There are some things no callous hand may touch, 
no irreverent eye may see; things that belong to the 
holy of holies within us, and on which no judgment 
may be passed except by Him who, seeing all, under¬ 
stands and forgiveth much. 

The one who should have felt the most concern— 
Jack Waller—felt the strain the least of all, appar¬ 
ently. He was a mystery to his brother-in-law, the 
lawyer, and also to the alienist who had been called in 
to help the defence. 

When Cogan talked to the alienist regarding Jack’s 
calm indifference about the outcome of the affair—with 
its dreadful possibilities, the M. D. wenf deeply into 
what were the probable causes. His exposition bri¬ 
stled with the technical terminology of psychology and 
3S4 


SOULS IN HELL 


335 


psycho-pathology; most of which the editor had not 
even heard of before. Quoting copiously from Prince, 
Freud, Janet, Sidis, and other authorities on the sub¬ 
ject, he spoke learnedly of “dissociative and multiple 
personality,” “libido,” “hysteria,” “neurasthenic 
states,” hallucinations, lines of cleavage, planes of 
consciousness, psycho-analysis and a lot of other big¬ 
mouthed, loud-sounding terms and phrases which pass 
current as word of golden wisdom with those who seek 
the origin of soul-life in the material, physical en¬ 
velope. 

Divested of its glittering word-play, and boiled down 
to its essentials, his solution in plain words was: Jack’s 
brain cells had broken down under the strain of his ex¬ 
periences in the war, and he was, therefore, suffering 
from temporary insanity. 

“I see,” said Cogan. “In other words, he had what 
the ordinary man calls a ‘brain-storm.’ ” 

The alienist looked at him with an air of disappoint¬ 
ment. 

“Well . . . yes ... I suppose that is what the 
ordinary man would probably call it.” 

The stress on the word “ordinary” was full of con¬ 
tempt. All his exhaustive and learned explanation 
had been thrown away and wasted on the editor. What 
was the use of having all those ponderous phrases 
and weighty quotations at his fingers’ ends if his audi¬ 
ence did not appreciate his erudition at its proper 
Value, but preferred the colloquial vulgarism “brain¬ 
storm?” 

When the alienist laboriously went over the same 
ground with the principal lawyer whom Cogan had 
engaged—through the kind offices of his boss—to 


3S6 


SOULS IN HELL 


take charge of the case, Mr. Rudin—the lawyer— 
turned to the editor to say: 

“Mr. Cogan, I think that is by far the best defence 
we can put up. In fact, in my opinion, it is the only 
one!” 

“The only one? I take it you mean to use it in 
conjunction with the incident of the shooting at the 
cats.” 

The lawyer shook his head positively. “I guess we 
will forget all about those cats.” He laughed. 

The editor stared at him in surprise. “Do you 
mean that you will not use that incident? Why . . .” 

“What you say about it may be true, Cogan,” 
interrupted the lawyer; “but that cat story is too 
thin!” 

“But damn it, Mr. Rudin, it is true!” Cogan in¬ 
sisted with some heat. “And you want the truth 
in a court of law, don’t you?” 

“Yes indeed we do—frequently,” the lawyer con¬ 
ceded, smiling; “but we don’t often get it, I am 
sorry to say.” 

The editor gave a gesture of impatience. 

“Now you listen to me, Mr. Cogan,” said the law¬ 
yer. “I am a lawyer, and even my worst enemies will 
admit that I know my business. For the sake of ar¬ 
gument, we will admit that the story of your brother- 
in-law firing at the cats on the fence is true in every 
detail; but . . . and it is a big ‘but’ ... I tell you 
frankly, the jury would not believe it! There are 
times, even in a court of justice, when the truth does 
more harm than good.” 

The alienist stroked his beard and smiled reminis¬ 
cently as he turned to look out of the window. Not 


SOULS IN HELL 


837 


so many moons ago, he had been the star witness in 
two separate trials of the same murder case, and in 
which he had played the part of what amounted to a 
dual personality. In the first trial, he had been the 
prop of the prosecuting attorney; whereas, in the 
second, he had used his wealth of information relating 
to psycho-pathology on the side of the defence. The 
editor’s innocence of legal procedure, and the status 
of the blind-folded lady who was supposed to rule 
over a court of justice rather amused and bored him. 
He might be an authority on things pertaining to the 
editing of magazines, but it was palpably evident that 
he knew precious little of how justice was administered 
in New York City. 

“I’ll tell you this, Cogan,” stated Rudin, the law¬ 
yer, impressively. “Judging from the interviews I 
have had with your brother-in-law, what the doctor 
has said is not only the best plea to set up, and there¬ 
fore the best defence, but is really the true state of 
affairs.” 

“Do you mean to say ...” began Cogan. 

“I mean to say,” continued Rudin, “that he is, 
right now, deranged if not wholly insane!” 

“What reason have you for forming such an amaz¬ 
ing opinion?” 

“Why . . . when I talked sensibly to him, trying 
to get him down to brass tacks—to the facts of the 
matter, he looked at me with a sort of pitying ex¬ 
pression, and chucked a lot of Scriptural quotations 
at me! I told him, one morning I was there, that 
while the ‘Lord is my Shepherd’ business and all that 
sort of thing might be very comforting to him—to 
keep his courage up, it wasn’t worth a whoop as a 


338 


SOULS IN HELL 


legal defence for murder; it was darned poor stuff on 
which to build an argument to convince a jury that 
he was innocent.” 

“What did he say to that?” said the alienist, mildly 
interested. 

“He didn’t say a blamed word, but looked up at 
the ceiling, and smiled a silly sort of smile; then nod¬ 
ded knowingly as if he could see something up there. 
Oh, he is nutti^, all right! Take it from me.” 

“And of course,” the alienist urged smoothly, “those 
little aberrations could be used to buttress up the 
claim that he is insane.” 

Cogan didn’t exactly know what to think! He had 
grave suspicions that such was the case, but disliked 
to harbor the thoughts; in a way, they seemed to 
savor of disloyalty to his brother-in-law. He remem¬ 
bered what his wife had told him of an experience 
she had had with Jack in his cell only a week previ¬ 
ous, which was somewhat similar to that of the 
lawyer’s. 

As Mrs. Cogan did not tell her husband all that 
occurred on that occasion, perhaps it is as well—for 
the sake of the completeness of the narrative—that the 
full account should now be given. 

It happened on one of her visits to her brother. 
Sitting beside him on the cot, she was sobbing her 
heart out while he was trying to comfort her. 

“Well now, Jack,” she said, between her sobs; 
“I’m going to tell you all about it.” 

“Never mind, Kitty,” he answered soothingly; “what 
is the good of crying over spilt milk? What’s done 
is done; and the best thing to do now is to learn 


SOULS IN HELL 


339 


whatever lesson there is to be gained from it, and 
strive to do better—next time.” 

“But I’ll feel better if I tell you, Jack,” she per¬ 
sisted. 

He saw that she was determined in her purpose to 
tell him, so to please her he listened to her recital 
with set face and closed eyes. 

“When I was a student at the Dramatic School, 
he visited there once a month as a sort of critic— 
listening to the pupils declaiming, and watching them 
act. Then he would give us advice and criticism . . . 
He invited me to his studio; and I, not suspecting 
anything out of the way, went . . . He gave me private 
lessons, gratis—he would not hear of my paying— 
and he would sometimes write short notes giving me 
hints and pointers which he said he had forgotten when 
I was in his studio. Of course, I wrote letters in 
reply, thanking him for his kindness ... I was only 
an emotional, stage-struck girl at the time, without 
much knowledge of the world, and I thought his doing 
all that for an unknown girl—giving me lessons and 
those hints—was perfectly splendid of him—I was 
quite overwhelmed with his kindness, and . . . well . . 
I guess I gushed and slobbered a lot over him ... in 
my letters, I mean ... I liked to write letters in 
those days, and whenever I had a pen in my hand, 
I used to write reams on reams, just letting my 
emotions run away with me. They were perfectly 
harmless, that I am positive of because—well, because 
I knew of nothing else; my dreams and. thoughts were 
as pure as a child’s; I was little better than a child, 
anyway, so far as knowledge of evil was concerned. 
The letters were as harmless as a child’s, but to those 


340 


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who didn’t know how innocent I was of such matters, 
an evil construction could be put on my words.” 

Her brother opened his eyes, and, putting his hands 
on her shoulders, looked searchingly at her. 

“Was there anything serious, anything wrong be¬ 
tween you and him? Tell me the truth now, Kitty!” 

“I swear, as God is my judge,” she replied, shaking 
her head strenuously, “there was absolutely nothing 
but friendship! Absolutely nothing! He insulted me, 
one day, in his studio, and I was so shocked, I refused 
to see him again ... I never went to his studio again, 
and always stayed away from the School when he 
visited there, but ... he kept my letters.” 

Her brother’s set face relaxed. “Oh! Thank God 
for that!” he murmured. 

He smiled grimly as he recalled the scene in the par¬ 
lor—Benton pointing threateningly at the letters, and 
his sister’s trepidation. The whole affair was now 
plain and clear to him. His sister watched the smile 
come into his face—wondering. 

“Well since you have nothing on that score to re¬ 
proach yourself with, you shouldn’t worry about it.” 

“Yes . . . but Jack . . . what is to become of you? 
Really, I ... am the . . . guilty . . .” 

Her brother quickly covered her mouth with his 
hand, and glanced hastily toward the cell door where 
an officer was standing. 

“You must do as I tell you, Kitty!” he commanded 
in a harsh tone. Say absolutely nothing! You have 
your child to think of! Do you wish to damn the rest 
of his life? Do you wish him, when he grows up, to 
curse his own mother for bringing that shame on him? 
Every time you waver, think of your child—and tht 


SOULS IN HELL 


341 


possibility of his cursing you. Now you promised 
me before; please keep your promise.” 

He stood up as he spoke, and looked at her with 
a severe countenance. 

“But you, Jack! What of you?” she whispered, 
her voice trembling. 

He looked upward, drew a deep breath, and smiled 
as though he saw a heavenly vision;—that which no 
words could utter. 

“In a way,” he said, slowly and dreamily, “I am 
not sorry this has happened; for I have learned more 
of real things in the few weeks I’ve been in this cell 
than I ever expected to know in this life.” He drew 
himself up to his full height. “Yes!”—with a look of 
gladness in his face—“ ‘There is a Divinity that 
shapes our ends; rough-hew them how we may!’ and 
though I walk through the Shadow of the Valley of 
Death, I will fear no evil; for—the Lord is my Shep¬ 
herd.” He patted her shoulder gently. “I am in 
safe hands, Kitty, and everything will be all right!” 

His exaltation seemed to be communicated to her as 
she gazed at his beaming face in awe. She sank to 
her knees, seized his hand convulsively, and covered 
it with hot tears and passionate kisses. 

Her husband who had been told only of the latter 
part of the incident for the moment thought of re¬ 
counting it to the lawyer and alienist, but he thought 
it best to be silent. 

‘What’s the use?’—he thought. ‘It would make 
them all the more positive in their belief that he was 
crazy. Poor old Jack!’ 

So—it was determined by the lawyer, as the one 
responsible for the successful issue of the case, that 


842 


SOULS IN HELL 


the line of defence would be “temporary insanity;” 
and he secretly hoped that Jack would, at the trial, 
throw some of that “religious guff”—as he termed 
it—at the jury. It would go far to make it plain 
to the jurymen that the poor chap really had a few 
screws loose. 




One thing, however, bothered the lawyer, and kept 
him awake of nights. 

The judge who was to try the case was a man of 
a hard, forbidding face; his head covered with closely 
cropped hair like a prize-fighter’s. He took a keen de¬ 
light in professing ignorance of slang words in common 
use, and would turn with a bland look of innocence 
to ask the counsel to translate the colloquialism into 
more or less classical English. His pose, when it did 
not irritate, amused the counsel who happened to be 
the victim of his pretended ignorance; for it was com¬ 
mon knowledge that the honorable judge was one of 
the worst old “rounders” in the city; that precious 
few prize-fights were pulled off, and few horse races 
run without him being there to grace the occasion with 
his presence. There were dark rumors and knowing 
hints flying about of pleasures less innocent than these; 
orgies—not reported in the daily newspapers, but 
well known to those of the underworld—at which he 
was usually an honored guest, if not indeed the star 
performer. His assumption of ignorance of that on 
which he was a recognized authority and past master, 


SOULS IN HELL 


343 


was, to those who knew the facts, little short of gro¬ 
tesque. 

As with most men in his position, a sobriquet had 
been tacked on him. He was called the “hanging 
judge!” for he had scant mercy to show the prisoner 
who was unfortunate enough to be tried by him. 

And he was the judge slated to preside at Jack’s 
trial! 

Whenever he thought of it—and it occupied his 
mind constantly—the lawyer shook his head omin¬ 
ously. 

“He has about one chance in a hundred with that 
darned old rip!” he admitted dolefully to the alienist. 
“About as much chance as a mouse in a cat’s claws!” 

Two days before the trial, however, something hap¬ 
pened which changed the lawyer’s tune to one of hope¬ 
ful delight. It really seemed as if some other Power 
had stepped in to help Jack, for the glad news— 
glad to Rudin, the lawyer, if not to the judge—was 
published that the “hanging Judge” had suddenly been 
taken ill with complications. 

The truth was: he had been taken home—drunk as 
a lord—from one of his revels in a taxi-cab, and had 
offered the driver a string of choice gutter oaths in 
lieu of his proper fare. The taxi-driver who did not 
know—and would not have cared if he had known— 
that his voluble passenger was Judge J—, had him¬ 
self graduated from the gutter school, and was, there¬ 
fore, at home in the verbal nuances of its speech. He 
staggered the honorable judge with his fluency in that 
respect; and, what was more to the point (and also 
to the enjoyment of those who heard of the facts 
later on), partly sobered the legal luminary by “hang- 


su 


SOULS IN HELL 

* 'm. ^ «r T " 

ing a few” good punches on the gentleman’s rubicund 
visage, and presenting him with a pair of “shiners”— 
two black eyes—which swelled up so that his beauty 
and sight were marred for the time being. 

Hence the announcement of his “illness,” which was 
a good excuse for His Honor’s disinclination to ap¬ 
pear in public, and to advertise the fact that, for 
once, he who was so fond of holding up to ridicule 
those who pleaded before him in his court, had met 
his match, and that the joke was on him. 

“My! but that’s good news!” cried the law T yer when 
he heard it. “Now we shall have old Hargrove to try 
the case, and we are lucky to get him; for like all 
old men he leans to the accused, and gives him the 
benefit of the doubt as much as possible in his charge 
to the jury.” 


XXVI 


On the opening day of the trial, it was noticed 
that Judge Hargrove was not only old, but seemed 
to be in very poor health. It was discovered afterwards 
that he had asked the Prosecuting Attorney to make 
it as easy for him as possible as he was not feeling 
very “spry;” and said that this was the last court 
he would preside over as he intended retiring from the 
bench. 

The trial opened with the usual preliminaries of 
choosing the jurymen. Rudin, the lawyer for the 
defence, challenged only one man,—one who had never 
met the prisoner, but confessed to being biased against 
him because of his part in the war; the objector be¬ 
ing a pacifist of the type that Nature sometimes turns 
out when she produces an object that is neither fish, 
fowl, nor good-red-herring. The man who filled his 
place had no bias one way or the other, and was open 
to argument. 

On the second day, when all the jurymen were 
chosen, the court-house was jammed to the doors by 
persons who were attracted to the trial for very dif¬ 
ferent reasons. There was a large number of the 
local towns-people present, anxious to see the prisoner 
acquitted because their sympathies went out to him 
and the Cogans; but the greater number were persons 
345 


SOULS IN HELL 


346 

belonging to the theatrical profession, and the “half¬ 
world” who, like buzzards, scented something unsav¬ 
oury, and wanted to hear the incidents that might be 
uncovered in the evidence but which could not be 
printed in the newspapers. 

All the big metropolitan dailies, of course, had their 
star reporters on the job; special writers, “sob-sis¬ 
ters” to write up the harrowing details of the de¬ 
ceased actor’s private life with a view to drawing the 
inevitable moral,—for it was suspected that the hidden 
motive for the killing had something to do with a wo¬ 
man; and numerous artists to enliven the reports with 
sketches “made on the spot” of everybody and every¬ 
thing connected with the case. 

Outside the court-house, the street was a solid mass 
of automobiles of all descriptions, from broken-down 
taxis to flashy racing cars and elegant limousines; 
the last named belonging to members of the motion pic¬ 
ture industry who were there to get new “dope” for 
scenes in moving picture plays. 


& 


Cogan, the editor, was the principal witness. Un¬ 
der the skillful questioning of his counsel, he told how 
he had made the acquaintance of Benton; of the many 
enjoyable hours they had spent together working on 
his play; the getting of the telephone message an¬ 
nouncing the finding of his dead body, and the arrest 
of Jack. 

Giving a straight-forward account, telling his story 


SOULS IN HELL 


347 


- V 

with such evident good feeling for the deceased actor, 
and sorrow for his sudden taking off, the impression 
he left on the minds of the jury and audience was 
very favorable. It was evident that Cogan had more 
to lose than gain by Benton’s death. Under the gru¬ 
elling cross-examination by the Prosecutor, he went 
to pieces. 

Happening to mention the incident of the cats and 
the racket they made on the fatal evening, he was led 
to give information relating to Jack’s remark (that 
he would “take a shot at them if he had his gun”), 
and of his (Cogan’s) handing out his own revolver to 
Jack, which, later in the evening, was found in Jack’s 
pocket. 

“You say the cats annoyed you, Mr. Cogan,” said 
the Prosecutor. “Of course we all know that a cats’ 
concert isn’t the most musical thing in the world, and 
is somewhat of a nuisance at the best of times—es¬ 
pecially when one wants to sleep; but why should 
the prisoner or you want to kill the cats, seeing that 
it was early in the evening. If it had been very late 
at night, it might have been excusable.” 

“I had been for several weeks working at high pres¬ 
sure at my professional duties, and I have suffered 
for years from insomnia. Only a few nights before, 
when I was unable to get to sleep, a couple of cats 
kept up such an infernal racket that I was a wreck 
the next morning from want of sleep.” 

“Yes, Mr. Cogan. Kindly continue.” 

“On this particular day, things had gone all wrong 
in my office, and in consequence, I was in a very ner¬ 
vous, irritable state. When I heard those cats start 
in again, I thought I should go crazy.” 


348 


SOULS IN HELL 


“So what did you do, Mr. Cogan?” 

“I opened the window of my study to see if I could 
frighten them away; I saw my brother-in-law . . .” 

“The prisoner at the bar?” inquired the Prosecutor. 

The editor nodded and continued: “Yes . . . walking 
up and down the lawn. I asked him to scare them 
off, and he . . er . . 

“What did he?” ...” The Prosecutor did not 
finish the question. 

“He said that if he had his gun, he would take a 
pot-shot at them.” 

“Did he wish to shoot them merely to keep his hand 
in, as it were, or ... ” 

“No-o. He said that he had it in for them because 
they had kept him awake the night previous.” 

“Oh! They had kept him awake! Did they keep 
you awake, too? On that particular night?” 

“No-o”—he answered with some hesitation—“they 
didn’t. I . . . didn’t hear them at all that night.” 

“You didn’t? Although you were troubled with in¬ 
somnia!” The Prosecutor shot a meaning glance at 
the jurjunen as he asked the question. 

Cogan shook his head in the negative. 

“Well—what did you do when the prisoner said 
that?” m. *4 

“I suddenly remembered that my revolver was lying 
in the drawer of my desk; so I got it out and handed 
it to him ... I told him to take a shot at the cats, 
then I closed the window.” 

“And then—what?” 

“I heard a shot, and the cats’ noise stopped.” 

“Then I presume you opened the window so that he 
could return the gun to you.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


$49 


“No, I didn’t.” 

“Nop How did he return the gun to you?” 

“He didn’t return it.” 

“He didn’t?” 

“No.” 

“Did you not think that was strange?” 

“Why—no; I forgot all about it.” 

“You forgot all about his having the revolver?” 

“Yes . . . Mr. Benton jokingly commented on my 
nervous state, and told me a story which made us 
both laugh, and—I forgot the revolver.” 

“Hm. What was the story, Mr. Cogan? Can you 
remember it?” 

“Ah—well—no, I am sorry to say that I cannot,” 
was the reply. “I really forget what it was.” 

“Cannot you remember what the story was about?” 

The editor gave a nervous laugh. “I haven’t the 
slightest idea now what the subject of the story was . . 
I am sorry.” 

“Seems strange that with your really excellent 
memory for some of the details, you cannot remember 
even what it was about.” 

Addressing his remark more to the jurymen than to 
the witness, the Prosecutor smiled cynically as he 
leaned against the jury-box. 

“It may seem strange, but it is the truth, never¬ 
theless!”’ the editor replied with a flash of temper. 

“You remember the cats 9 story very well, indeed, but 
cannot remember a funny story,” said the Prosecutor 
with a touch of sarcasm. 

He looked at the jurymen to see if they caught his 
point. The editor’s recital of the incident of the cats 
evidently appealed to their sense of the ludicrous, and 


350 


SOULS IN HELL 


they showed by their expressions that they felt their 
intelligence was being trifled with; most of them hav¬ 
ing a smile of regret on their faces, while some 
frowned at what they considered Cogan’s foolishness 
—if not impudence—of telling the idiotic yarn and 
expecting them to believe it! 

“So you did not see the revolver again until it 
was shown to you at the Police Station after the mur- 
der?” 

“No. I did not.” 

“How many shots did the prisoner fire at the . . er 
. . . cats? Can you remember that little detail, Mr. 
Cogan ?” 

“One!” 

“Are you positive that only one shot was fired? 
Careful now!” 

“Only one!” declared the editor, positively. 

“Are you aware that two chambers were empty when 
the weapon was found on the prisoner?” 

“I can explain that. I—” began Cogan. 

“Was that other one fired at a— cat?” the Prose¬ 
cutor asked. 

The editor flushed with anger. “No! It was not! 
When I loaded the gun, I discovered that the last 
cartridge was defective; the rim was abraded, and it 
would not go in the chamber.” 

“Did you ever have that happen before? Did you 
ever find a cartridge defective in the same way that 
that particular one was?” 

“No, never!” 

“What did you do with the defective cartridge? 
Send it back to the makers—or what?” 

“I really forget ! ... I have a hazy recollection of 


SOULS IN HELL 


351 


putting it on my desk, intending to send it back to the 
dealers from whom I bought it; but, really, I don’t 
know what became of it!” 

“Haven’t you seen it since?” the Prosecutor said 
incredulously. 

“No, I have not.” 

The Prosecutor looked across at the jury, and, 
raising his eyebrows meaningly, smiled broadly. 

“Do you sit at that desk very often?” he asked. 

“Practically every night—doing something or other 
in the form of writing.” 

“And you have never seen that cartridge since; 
from that time to this!” 

“No, sir; I have not.” 

The Prosecutor rested his chin on his hand, as if 
in deep thought, and shook his head slowly. “Hm, 
hm! I wonder! I wonder . . . whether those cats . . . 
perhaps they walked away with it!” he said in a 
loud aside to the jury. 

As Cogan’s lawyer had predicted: the relation of 
the cats’ incident did the case for the defence more 
harm than good. It was too commonplace to be 
accepted as truth! 

“Mr. Cogan,” the Prosecutor continued, turning 
to the witness, “you have told the Court how much you 
liked Mr. Benton personally; how enjoyable his so¬ 
ciety was, and how sorry you felt on hearing of his 
death.” 

The editor gravely nodded his head affirmatively. 

“To what extent did your brother-in-law share your 
enjoyment of Mr. Benton’s society?” 

Cogan flushed at the question, and shot a quick 
glance at Jack sitting with folded arms and closed 


S52 


SOULS IN HELL 


eyes. “My brother-in-law did not like Mr. Benton . . . 
He didn’t want to know him or meet him.” 

“Do you know why he did not like him?” 

Cogan hesitated a moment, then proceeded to relate 
what Benton had told him regarding the encounter on 
board ship; also of Jack’s anger on meeting the actor 
in his (Cogan’s) house. 

“Did your brother-in-law say or do anything in 
particular on that occasion? When he met Mr. Ben¬ 
ton in your house?” 

“He said he did not like him, and refused to shake 
hands with him ... I tried to induce him to change 
his mind, but ...” 

“Do you remember your brother-in-law saying, on 
that occasion, anything about shooting Benton?” 

The question was merely a feeler, but it electrified 
the jurors and audience! All waited eagerly for the 
reply. Cogan was manifestly very much distressed. 
He glanced at his counsel, who was chewing nervously 
on his moustache, for guidance. The Prosecutor saw 
he had, unwittingly, struck on the right clue. 

“Never mind the counsel for the defence,” he 
shouted, waving his hand. “Please answer the ques¬ 
tion.” 

The editor glanced at Jack who was looking serene¬ 
ly at him. When their eyes met, Jack’s nostrils di¬ 
lated and his lips set tightly as he nodded quickly, 
motioning to Cogan to tell the facts. 

Cogan passed the end of his tongue over his dry 
lips nervously. “He said—that he would as soon—put 
a—bullet in his—dirty hide—as talk to him,” he 
stated in a husky voice. 


SOULS IN HELL 


353 


“Ah! Thank you, Mr. Cogan,”—the Prosecutor 
indicated that he had finished his cross-examination. 

The editor was coming off the witness stand, when 
Jack leaned over to his counsel and asked dryly: 
“Don’t you think it would be well to ask Cogan why 
I said that?” 

Rudin, his lawyer, was on his feet instantly! Mo¬ 
tioning to Cogan to keep his seat on the stand, he 
asked: “Did your brother-in-law give you any reason 
for saying that he would as soon put a bullet in his 
hide as to talk to him?” 

“Yes. He did,” answered Cogan. 

“Ha! Well, let us have it! Kindly tell the Court 
what that reason was.” 

“On board the liner, the evening before landing, 
Mr. Benton was half drunk, and said something Mr. 
Waller resented.” 

All in the court-room leaned forward to listen in¬ 
tently; this, evidently, was the motive behind the kill¬ 
ing. 

“What was it Mr. Benton said on that occasion 
that your brother-in-law objected to?” 

“He spoke lightly of women’s virtue. Made coarse, 
vile remarks about women in general.” 

“And what did Mr. Waller do?” 

“He would not discuss the matter with me; but since, 
I have spoken to some of the officers belonging to the 
ship. They told me Mr. Waller struck Benton. They 
fought, and Benton was knocked out.” 

“Good! Serve him right!” came from one of the 
women in the front seat. 

The judge smiled wearily and rapped for order. 


354 


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“And was that the reason Mr. Waller refused to 
shake hands with Benton at your house?” 

“Yes, sir. He said Benton was poisonous; and that 
he would not have him in his house.” 

“Showed his sense!” came from a feminine voice. 

The judge looked severely at the group of women 
from whence the comment came, and shook his head 
slowly in warning. 

“Just a moment, Mr. Cogan,” said the Prosecutor 
when Rudin was through with the witness; “I want 
to ask you a question. Was any particular woman’s 
name mentioned on the occasion of the fight on the 
ship ?” 

“Not that I know of, sir. So far as my information 
goes, his remarks applied to women in general,” an¬ 
swered Cogan. 

The answers to the questions made a great im¬ 
pression on the audience; for the motive had not yet 
been uncovered. Because Benton had spoken of women 
in general was no reason why a man should take it 
upon himself to kill the scamp. The knowing ones 
in the court-room opined that there must have been 
some jealousy under it all; that, in all probabilty, the 
actor had some particular woman—whom Waller knew, 
perhaps loved—in his mind, which gave point to his 
scurrilous remarks. But who was the woman? That 
was what they would like to know! Those who knew 
Jack, especially the women, started clapping their hands 
when Cogan told the reason of Jack’s dislike of Ben¬ 
ton. The demonstration was quickly stopped by the 
court officer; but it showed sympathy for the accused, 
and, possibly had some effect on the jury. 

The Cogans’ servant girl was put on the stand by 


SOULS IN HELL 


355 


the Prosecuting Attorney, but as she swore that all 
she knew of Jack was to his credit—“a perfect gentle¬ 
man,’’ as she put it, and that she had heard absolutely 
nothing about shooting Benton or anyone else, her 
testimony did not add anything to the strength of 
the case for the State. 

The damning evidence was, of course, that of the 
Prosecutor, his chauffeur, and Mr. Warren; all of 
whom had arrived on the scene of the murder and 
found Jack there, bareheaded and with the revolver in 
his pocket. As the place was less than half a mile 
from Cogans’ house, the fact of Jack being without 
his hat, and breathing rapidly as if he had run after 
Benton (which he had), pointed with no uncertain 
finger at him as the perpetrator of what was—in the 
Prosecutor’s opinion—a cold-blooded, premeditated 
murder. 

The fact, too, that both the alienist and the lawyer 
for the defence laid such great stress on the terrific 
nervous strain of the war as being a probable cause, 
implied that they themselves were in no doubt about 
him being the guilty one. 

Mrs. Cogan not having been called as a witness 
(following the expressed wish and command of Jack, 
who was afraid that her emotionalism would carry her 
away), she had been prevailed upon not to attend the 
trial. She stayed at home with her boy, Harold, try¬ 
ing to keep his mind off his Uncle Jack—while she 
could think of no one else. It was a heart-breaking 
time for her! 

Not to weary the reader with all the monotonous 
procedure of the examination and cross-examination 
of the various friends and acquaintances of Jack who 


356 


SOULS IN HELL 


had been called to testify to his honorable career, his 
uprightness, his courage, his ideality and high prin¬ 
ciples, let it suffice to say that no “hidden motive” 
was found, no particular woman’s name brought into 
the case, no evidence of any kind to offset what ap¬ 
peared to be the facts. 


j* 


When the judge commenced his charge to the jury, 
it was remarked that he spoke with deep feeling and 
great solemnity. In the light of what happened later 
on, some of his remarks may be found interesting. 

“. . . The power is put into your hands,” he said, 
addressing the jury, “of saying whether the prisoner 
at the bar is guilty or not guilty; to suffer the penalty 
demanded by the law, or—to go free . . . You have 
listened to the testimony of those who have known 
the accused for a short and also for a long time; 
persons who have testified to that which is, in my 
opinion, the most valuable asset a man can possess, 
namely: character ; and while that testimony may 
be biased in favor of the accused, nevertheless, it 
should have some weight with you in arriving at your 
decision. And for this reason: No evidence has been 
brought forward to show that the splendid tributes 
to the accused are undeserved. His fine qualities, 
high-mindedness, and the attributes of that much 
abused term—‘gentleman’—are conceded him, without 
anything to show the opposite. You may think that 
that is a poor defence for an accused man to lean on; 


SOULS IN HELL 


857 


but in my humble opinion, a man’s character is his 
best defence; for it mirrors forth the man’s thoughts 
and actions, and informs us as to what the man inside 
really is. Strip a man of his good name, and—what 
remains? You all know the old adage: ‘Give a dog a 
bad name—you may as well hang him!’ If that can 
be said of an animal, how much more significant it is 
when said of a man made in the image of his Maker! 
Again, I would direct your attention to the fact that 
all the evidence against the accused is circumstantial! 
Any man with warm blood in his veins might stroll 
out of a garden and on to the road for a short dis¬ 
tance, especially if the night be an inviting one; and, as 
the defence states, the accused heard the shot, and ran 
in the direction of the sound. What would be more 
natural than for him to bend over to see what ailed 
the man on the ground? The fact that a weapon was 
found in the accused man’s pocket is not, necessarily , 
conclusive. One of the witnesses for the defence—the 
prisoner’s brother-in-law, stated that he closed the 
window after giving the revolver with which to scare 
the cats away. What more natural than that the ac¬ 
cused, who is a soldier used to handling a gun as casu¬ 
ally as the ordinary man handles a pocket-knife, should 
slip it into his pocket, rather than run the risk of 
meeting the man he despised—and rightly, too, I 
think—by returning the gun to his brother-in-law— 
Mr. Cogan—who was in the same room as Benton . . . 
I lay stress on all these things, because human nature 
is inclined to jump to conclusions. Because the ac¬ 
cused was found at the spot of the crime: because a 
revolver was found in his pocket, does not necessarily 
prove him to be the one guilty of that crime. 


358 


SOULS IN HELL 


I would have you think seriously of all these con¬ 
siderations, for life is a very sacred thing, and should 
not be lightly taken away.” 

When the jurors filed out to deliberate on their 
verdict, the Prosecutor leaned over to Jack’s lawyer. 

“Say, Rudin, if your client doesn’t get off scot- 
free, you won’t be able to blame the old man! One 
should imagine he was the counsel for the defence, 
not the judge. I never heard anything more one-sided 
in all my life!” 

“Well, I hope you don’t feel very badly about it; do 
you?” said Rudin with a grin of satisfaction. He cer¬ 
tainly had no fault to find with the judge’s summing 
up. 

“Between you and tne, I should be glad to see him 
free,” the Prosecutor admitted. “I would be the first 
to congratulate him; for I think the world is well rid 
of a skunk!” 

The counsel for the defence smiled. “We will hope 
for the best, Clark.” 

“Do you know what I think, Rudin?” the Prose¬ 
cutor said with a sly look. 

Rudin looked inquiringly at him. “I don’t.” 

“I think he is shielding somebody. Some woman!” 
He looked knowingly at Rudin. 

“Not that I am aware of; ’pon my honor,” replied 
Rudin. 

The other looked quizzingly at Rudin through his 
half-closed eyes, and shrugged His shoulders as he 
gathered his papers together—for the court at that 
moment was adjourned. 


XXVII 


Mrs. Cogan sat at the side of her husband when 
the jurymen filed in. She had insisted on being 
present; and although Cogan did his best to persuade 
her not to attend, she had her way. 

“Which do you prefer me to go to?” she asked him. 
“To go to the court-room, or to the insane asylum? 
Because that is where I’ll land if I have to stay here in 
the house!” The unconscious Irish bull was lost on 
her husband, but he allowed her to override all his ob¬ 
jections. 

The court-room was tense with suppressed excite¬ 
ment. Everyone was prepared to give Jack Waller 
an ovation—expecting an acquittal. 

A hush fell over the room when the judge asked: 

“Mr. Foreman, have you agreed on your verdict?” 

“Your Honor, we find the accused guilty of man¬ 
slaughter! In consideration of the high character the 
accused has hitherto borne, we strongly recommend 
clemency.” 

The verdict came as a great shock to those in the 
room; especially as the judge had shown himself so 
biased in favor of the prisoner. Nothing less than a 
verdict of “Not Guilty” had been expected. Appar¬ 
ently, the circumstantial evidence had been too much 
for the jurors. 


359 


360 


SOULS IN HELL 


When the full meaning of the words percolated 
through Mrs. Cogan’s mind, she lost all control of her¬ 
self. 

Springing to her feet, her hands outstretched to the 
judge, “He is not guilty, your Honor!” she shrieked 
in agony. “He is innocent! I am—” She collapsed 
and fell to the floor in a dead faint before she could 
complete the sentence. 

The Prosecutor’s face beamed as he caught the eye 
of Jack’s lawyer. He made a grimace full of meaning, 
and whispered: 

“What did I tell you, Rudin? Cherchez la femmel 
That is the woman your client is shielding!” 

Rudin gaped in astonishment. He was thunder¬ 
struck! It put a new complexion on the whole case! 
Now he understood why Waller had insisted on keeping 
his sister away from the court-room. Evidently he 
wished to avoid the very thing that had just hap¬ 
pened ! 

Her husband and one of the newspaper artists lifted 
Mrs. Cogan, and hurriedly carried her down the aisle. 
Tracy, the writer, who was sitting at the end of one of 
the seats, jumped up and assisted to carry her out 
to the anteroom. 

For the first time during the trial, Jack showed 
the strain he was under. His sister’s exclamation had 
surprised, and, for the time being, completely un¬ 
manned him! His face, deathly white, was covered 
with beads of perspiration; and he shook as with an 
ague! Expecting every moment to hear the judge or¬ 
der his sister’s arrest, he closed his eyes, and set his 
teeth trying to regain his composure; the knuckles of 


SOULS IN HELL 


861 


his hands grasping the woodwork showing white, and 
the sinews standing out like whipcord. 

“I wish the gentlemen of the jury to resume their 
seats while I address them and the others in this court¬ 
room,” the judge said slowly and very deliberately. 

The jurymen looked sheepishly at each other. They, 
too, had heard Mrs. Cogan’s outburst, and guessed 
that the judge was going to read them a lecture on 
the worthlessness of circumstantial evidence; for, ac¬ 
cording to her own words, Mrs. Cogan was the guilty 
one. 

“I am sorry that you saw fit to bring in the ver¬ 
dict you did,” began the judge, noticing their expres¬ 
sions ; “I hoped you would have found otherwise.” 
He seemed to have difficulty in speaking calmly. The 
muscles of his face worked, and his lips tightened, as 
though he were holding his passion down. “While it 
may be considered unconventional, nevertheless, I feel 
justified in the course I now take.” 

“Phew! Now for a calling down,” whispered one 
juror to his neighbor, who responded with, “Yeah! 
looks as if he’s going to give us hell!” 

The Prosecutor and Rudin exchanged glances. They 
fully expected the judge to point out to the jurymen 
their mistake in taking the circumstantial evidence at 
its face value, and to order the arrest of Mrs. Cogan. 

“Last evening, on my way home,” the judge began, 
huskily, “while waiting for my train, I glanced over 
the magazines on the newsstand. Among them was the 
current issue of the Manhattan Short Story Magazine. 
Hastily scanning the pages, I was attracted by the 
title of one of the stories.” 

The persons in the court-room looked wonderingly 


362 


SOULS IN HELL 


at each other. Why—what was the meaning of all 
this! Did the judge imagine that they were interested 
in a story in a popular magazine? They expected to 
hear him order Mrs. Cogan’s arrest, or something 
equally dramatic; but here he was, talking about a 
magazine he had bought! What had that to do with 
the case? 

“I bought the magazine, and read the story called, 
*A Psychic Mystery in the train going home . . . 
The story affected me so deeply, I have brought it 
with me to court,”—he held the magazine up so that 
all could see it,—“and I wish to tell you the brief out¬ 
line of this particular story.” He wiped his glasses 
slowly and very carefully. 

The Prosecutor looked in amazement at Rudin, the 
lawyer for the defence. 

“What’s the matter with the old man?” he asked. 
“Has he gone weak in the head?” 

Mrs. Cogan having revived, now quietly entered the 
court-room with her husband and Tracy. She had 
again insisted on being present to hear the rest of the 
proceedings; and Cogan, exacting a solemn promise 
from her that she would not make any more scenes, 
had again let her have her way. A friendly police¬ 
man found seats for them at the rear of the room. 
They were just in time to hear the judge say that he 
wished to give them an outline of the story. Tracy, 
being interested in stories of all kinds, was about to 
ask the policeman what story the judge was telling, 
when the latter continued with his subject. 

“The story opens with a description of a class-room 
in a School of Acting,—a Dramatic School. Students, 
most of them girls and young women, sit on chairs in 


SOULS IN HELL 


363 


rows. In front of the class is their instructor—an old 
man, a retired actor. Near him sits another—an actor 
in the hey-day of his popularity. He is there in the 
role of visiting critic. He is dressed in the height of 
fashion. One of the students, named Mary, stands in 
front of the class; reciting and gesturing. She finishes, 
bows to her teacher and the visitor. The latter is de¬ 
lighted with her reciting, claps his gloved hands in 
applause, says her performance is ‘fine, very fine.* 
Mary is very much pleased.” 

Tracy had no need of asking the policeman any 
questions, for he listened in astonishment to what was 
practically the synopsis of his own story; or rather, 
the story dictated to him by his unseen helper;—in 
this instance, Benton. 

“Do you hear what he is saying, Cogan? That’s 
my story he is reading! In this month’s magazine.” 

The editor looked blankly at Tracy. He had read 
the story hurriedly in the galley-proofs, but in the 
stress of the more important matter of Jack’s case, 
had forgotten all about it. As the judge continued, 
however, Cogan began to recollect it, and wondered 
what was the object of reading it. In his normal 
state and under other conditions, he would have been 
tickled to death to have his magazine get such a free 
advertisement; but bowed down with sorrow as he was 
now, that aspect did not occur to him. Mrs. Cogan, 
her face white and drawn, had no ears for anything 
but the judge’s reading; the scene he had described 
brought back to her memories of a similar incident in 
her own student days. She wondered who had writ¬ 
ten it, and how much the writer knew of her experi¬ 


ences. 


264 


SOULS IN HELL 


“As I do not wish to take up your time unnecessar¬ 
ily,” the judge went on, adjusting his eyeglasses, “I 
shall merely give you the salient incidents in the story, 
which goes on to the visiting critic talking to Mary 
apart from the students . . . He is a very suave, oily 
character . . . He covers her with adulation, and flat¬ 
ters her with his appreciation. Gives her his visiting 
card, invites her to his own Studio, offering to give 
her private lessons in the art of acting—free. Says he 
can, and will make a star of her . . . The unsuspecting 
girl is overwhelmed with the praise and . . . the kind 
offer. She accepts his invitation. He shakes hands 
with her, and soon after bids the class and teacher 
‘good day.* 

“The next scene is a richly furnished studio apart¬ 
ment—the actor’s . . . Mary keeps her appointment 
with him, and, at his suggestion, takes off her hat and 
coat . . . He shows her framed photographs of him¬ 
self in various characters which hang on the walls, also 
numerous quaint and beautiful things he has picked up 
in his wanderings, and on his professional tours; all 
with the idea of impressing her with a sense of her 
good fortune in having such a great actor take an 
interest in her welfare and career. 

“He proceeds to give her a lesson; asks her to re¬ 
cite. Now and then, he interrupts to give her advice, 
and to correct her faults of voice and gesture. 

“The lessons continued day after day until . . . 
on a certain day when they were rehearsing a love 
scene, he, as the lover, had to embrace Mary . . . He 
gathers her into his arms, kisses her in a very voluptu¬ 
ous way, his hands stray over her figure as he leers 
into her eyes. She tries, gently, to disengage herself 


SOULS IN HELL 


365 


from his embrace; for she begins to realize that it is 
not merely acting. He covers her face with kisses-— 
presses her to him in a sensual manner. Mary, very 
much frightened—breaks away from him—panting— 
with fear of she knows not what . . . He pretends to 
be astonished, tells her that it is only ‘make-believe’— 
acting. Mary knows that it is only too real, and . . . 
disgusting! She walks to a chair on which her hat 
and coat lie—she puts her hat on. He expostulates 
with her—calls her foolish, tells her that if she cannot 
feel passionate, she will never be a successful actress . . 
Her fear of him, and the excitement of what she has 
gone through, is too much for her; she feels faint— 
asks him for a glass of water. He replies 4 why, cer¬ 
tainly; with the greatest of pleasure,’ turns away with 
a significant leer, goes into an adjoining room—his 
bedroom . . . Mary sinks on the chair—almost faint¬ 
ing.” 

The judge reached for the glass of water on his 
desk, and sipped a few drops to wet his lips and 
tongue. 

“In the bedroom, the actor pours out a glass of 
water, takes a small phial of water from his dressing 
table and pours some of its contents into the glass of 
water. He goes back into the room where Mary is 
waiting, and holds the glass to her lips. She drinks 
half of it, thanks him, leans back in the chair. . . . 
The actor stands watching her with a satanic smile. 

. . . Her hand with the glass slowly drops. He 
seizes the glass, puts it on the table, Mary collapses 
on the chair in a heap. He chuckles hideously, pulls 
the hat-pin out of her hat, throws the hat on the 


366 


SOULS IN HELL 


table . . . The poor girl is doped! Rendered uncon¬ 
scious by the stuff he has put into the glass of water! 
. . . He lifts her from the chair, carries her into his 
bedroom. Lays her on his bed, looks at her with a 
lustful expression on his face, goes to the window, 
pulls down the shade.” 

The judge paused in his reading to look at his audi¬ 
ence. 

“There are some things even the devil himself does 
not dare do in broad daylight,” he remarked to the 
jurors. 

The newspaper artists had the chance of their lives 
—if they had only realized it; for the expressions on 
the faces of the hearers were worthy of a painter. The 
men were frowning and biting their lips in suppressed 
anger, their fists clenched tightly. The women had 
their heads bowed, most of them crying into their hand¬ 
kerchiefs ; even those of the demi-monde looked ill at 
ease. Giving the incidents of the narrative in such a 
plain, unvarnished fashion, and in a tense, staccato 
voice, Judge Hargrove made the scenes stand out like 
etched pictures in the minds of those listening to his 
recital. Mrs. Cogan pressed her handkerchief to her 
mouth, unconsciously nodding her head slowly, agree¬ 
ing with the story the judge was relating. Her hus¬ 
band was glaring with impotent anger; while Tracy 
was noting the effect his story was producing on the 
people. 

“The next scene,” continued the judge, in a faltering 
voice shaking with emotion, “is one I would willingly 
omit; but—it is an essential part of the story. 

“The poor girl is lying on the bed—resting on her 
hand as though she had pushed herself up from a re- 


SOULS IN HELL 


867 


dining position. Her hair is disarranged, her waist 
is open—partly exposing her bosom . . . Pressing her 
hand to her forehead, she tries to brush away what 
seems to be a horrible nightmare . . . She notices that 
her waist is unbuttoned. She gazes around her—dazed 
. . . Gradually, she realizes where she is. Her jaw 
drops—her mouth opens—her bosom heaves . . . She 
feels like shrieking,—she realizes what has happened! 

“Slowly . . . stunned by the shock of the discovery, 
she fastens her waist . . . adjusts her disarranged dress. 
She goes into the other room where her seducer is loll¬ 
ing in a chair, smoking a cigarette, and smiling a self- 
satisfied smile . . . With an expression on her face as if 
she has been turned to stone . . . she comes to him . . . 
stands in front of him . . . stares stonily at him . . . 
Slowly picking up her coat and hat, she backs slowly 
to the door, and . . . goes out.” 

Taking off his glasses to wipe the tears from his 
eyes. Judge Hargrove lowered his head, and swallowed 
the lump in his throat. He was as much affected by 
the story as were his auditors. Regaining his com¬ 
posure, he resumed: 

“Poor Mary goes home to the boarding house where 
she is staying to write a letter to her only living rela¬ 
tive. The letter the poor, outraged girl wrote, told of 
the shocking crime committed on her innocent, defence¬ 
less body; told of her intention to destroy all clues to 
her identity; to travel to another city where she was 
not known, and ... to take her own life; for she could 
not live with such a stain on her soul . . . The letter 
gave the name of her seducer . . . The one to whom 
she wrote the letter, swore to avenge her!” 

By this time, most of the women were crying audi- 


368 


SOULS IN HELL 


bly; the men had their heads bowed—as though in 
shame. 

“The next scene is on a country road . . . The ac¬ 
tor, the polished gentleman of the world, the seducer 
of the innocent girl, is walking down the road on his 
way to the railroad station . . . Mary’s avenger steps 
out from behind a tree and stops him. In a few words 
he recalls the incident to the actor’s memory; tells him 
he is there to avenge Mary’s death, and . . . shoots 
him! Bending down, he assures himself the actor is 
dead. The avenger walks quickly to the side of the 
road, and disappears in the dark shadows of the trees 
. . . He sees a woman run to the dead man. She has 
a revolver in her hand. She bends down and discovers 
that he is dead; then runs back up the road from 
whence she came! . . . That is the brief outline of the 
story, which ends with the question: ‘Who killed the 
actor?’ ” 

A thrill ran over the audience as his hearers grasped 
the meaning of the question: “Who killed the actor?” 
and looked at Jack who was white as death and shaking 
like a leaf. 

Everyone in the room saw now what the judge’s ob¬ 
ject was in reading the story to them; for they re¬ 
alized that a woman was in the case, and that Jack 
knew who she was. The impression was accentuated 
when the Prosecutor stood up, and looked toward the 
rear of the court-room. When he was seen to speak 
hurriedly to the court officer who, evidently acting on 
his instructions, walked up the aisle to where Mrs. 
Cogan sat with her husband and Tracy, they felt sure 
that her arrest was a matter of only a few seconds. 
Everybody was tense with expectation! The repor- 


SOULS IN HELL 


369 


ters’ fingers sped over their paper, feverishly describing 
in sensational phrases the dramatic denouement the 
judge had sprung on his audience. The court-room 
was all of a hubbub! 

The Prosecutor leaned over to Rudin. “How’s that 
for a surprise? The old man isn’t so crazy as I 
thought he was! Didn’t I tell you to look for the wo¬ 
man? Now what do you think?” 

Rudin sat looking blankly at Jack who seemed 
carved out of stone. 

The judge rapped sharply for silence. 

When the noise in the room had dropped to a low 
murmuring of voices, Judge Hargrove took his eye¬ 
glasses off his nose, laid them on his desk, and said: 

“I do not know where or how the author got his 
story, but . . . that story . . . is . . . true!” 

All in the room stared at the judge in astonishment. 
The silence was profound! 

“The name of the seducer in the story is, by a pe¬ 
culiar coincidence, Denton. The real name is Benton! 
The innocent, trusting girl . . . was . . . my dear . . . 
darling granddaughter!” 

For the first time during the narrative, the judge 
broke down, and sobbed like a child. 

The effect was electrical! For the instant, the 
audience seemed turned to stone images! The lawyers 
stared at each other—dazed! Jack all at once lost his 
woe-begone expression, and, glancing to where his sister 
sat, heaved a great sigh of relief. 

Judge Hargrove rose slowly to his feet. He ap¬ 
peared to have aged in the past few minutes. In a 
tense voice, shaking with emotion, he said: 

“Gentlemen of the jury ... In spite of the verdict 


370 


SOULS IN HELL 


you have found against the accused, and which I now 
put aside, I declare the prisoner at the bar innocent 
of the crime with which he is charged, and hereby di¬ 
rect that he goes free . . . He is not guilty!” 

He turned to face the people, some of whom were 
casting glances over their shoulders toward the rear of 
the room. 

“My little Mary is avenged! 1 . . . hilled . . . Ben¬ 
ton!” ' 

He almost shrieked the words. 

As though impelled by an interior impulse, he start¬ 
ed to walk off the bench to go to his private room. 

Suddenly, he stopped, clutched feebly at his breast, 
tried to steady himself. He reeled backward and col¬ 
lapsed, with his head hanging over the edge of the 
desk. His mouth opened and a thin, dark stream of 
blood trickled from between his lips. 

The court-room was in an uproar! Everybody 
yelling at the top of their voices! 

The high tension in which the strain of the reading 
of the story had held the people now broke, and under 
the reaction due to the confession of the judge, the 
place looked as if pandemonium had broken loose. 

The court attendants, the Prosecutor, and the alien¬ 
ist rushed on to the bench to assist the judge to his 
chair. 

Gradually, a hush fell over the room when the Pros¬ 
ecutor held up his hands for silence. 

“Ladies and gentlemen. Judge Hargrove has gone 
to a Higher Tribunal!” he said, solemnly. 


XXVIII 


When Jack, with the aid of the Prosecutor and his 
own lawyer, was able to free himself from the atten¬ 
tions of his sympathizers and admirers who insisted on 
shaking hands, and showering congratulations on him, 
he passed out of the court-room with his sister, her 
husband, and Tracy to the automobile the Prosecutor 
kindly put at his service. The little party drove off 
amid the cheers of the people who had crowded out of 
the court-house, and was soon speeding toward the 
Cogans’ home. 

The journey was made in silence; each being oc¬ 
cupied with his—and her—own thoughts. 

Mrs. Cogan, inert, sat in a stupor with her head 
resting on her brother’s breast; the inevitable reaction 
having come, bringing with it a collapse of her nerve- 
force. Jack sat upright, his arm thrown protectingly 
around his sister’s shoulders; his eyes full of a glad 
light. Cogan nervousty chewed the end of his mous¬ 
tache, cudgelling his brain for answers to the various 
questions which arose in his mind; for, to him, the 
affair had become still more complex and extraordinary. 

What bothered him was: if Jack was not guilty, 
why had he not said so? What was his reason for al¬ 
lowing himself to be branded with the accusation of 

sn 


SOULS IN HELL 


372 

being a murderer, and running the risk of suffering 
the penalty? Cogan could not understand it at all! 

He of all those in the court-room (with the exception 
of his wife afid Tracy) had been the only to catch the 
judge’s words aright. The judge had said plainly 
enough that the avenger (whom he spoke of as “he”) 
had fired at Benton, and then went on to say that he 
had seen a woman with a revolver in her hand, bending 
over the actor’s body. 

The people in the audience, whose minds were full of 
the idea that a woman was at the bottom of it all, had, 
strange to say, overlooked that point. Their minds 
were so set on discovering the woman—whoever she 
was, that when they heard the judge tell of a woman, 
they jumped to the conclusion that the woman had 
committed the deed. 

Perhaps Cogan, having his memory refreshed by the 
judge’s reading, recollected the end of the story, and 
so was prepared. Anyhow, the idea that his own wife 
might be the woman in the case did not enter his mind 
for a moment; consequently, Jack’s willingness to be a 
martyr puzzled him exceedingly. Evidently, there was 
some unknown woman mixed up in the affair whom 
Jack loved, and whom he was willing to shield. He 
wondered who she was. 

“Come along, sis, old girl,” whispered Jack to His 
sister when the car pulled up at the front gate. “Har¬ 
old is waiting for us.” 

At the mention of her child’s name, she straightened 
up wearity and smiled a tired smile. 

“Pull yourself together now,” advised Jack, patting 
her on the shoulder. “We are home—home! Be a 
brave soldier now, Kitty.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


873 


“God bless you, Jack, boy!” she whispered fervently, 
looking at him with a new light shining in her moist 
eyes. “I have just now seen that picture of the two 
brothers of long ago, and —now I understand /” She 
leaned forward and kissed him tenderly. 

“You did! That’s great! I am so glad. Now you 
can understand the tie between us.” 

She nodded affirmatively. 

Her boy Harold was wild with delight at seeing his 
Uncle Jack again; and as they went up the garden 
path with his chubby arms wound tightly round Jack’s 
neck, he lisped his welcome, “I loves ’oo; I loves ’oo so 
much!” in between the kisses he lavished on his uncle’s 
thin face. His mother clung to her brother’s other 
arm, smiling happily at her offspring. 

“God bless his dear little heart,” she said; then in a 
whisper to Jack: “and make him a noble, brave man 
like you!” 

When they arrived at the entrance to the house, 
Tracy wished to leave and return to town; for, as he 
said, “You people would rather be alone without having 
an outsider butting in.” 

Cogan pooh-poohed the idea; and grabbing Tracy’s 
arm, forcibly detained him. 

“You are the last man I’d accuse of butting in, 
old scout! You are no outsider; you are one of this 
family from now on. Only for you and your crazy 
spiritual stuff—God bless you!—we should be a very 
unhappy family. Besides, I want to know more about 
that story, old man.” 

Mrs. Cogan added her entreaties to her husband’s 
words. 

“Yes, please, Mr. Tracy; if for only this once! We 


37 4 


SOULS IN HELL 


are under a greater debt to you than you may be 
aware of.” 




Later on, when the dinner things were cleared away, 
and Harold had been prevailed on by his uncle to go 
to bed, the three men—Jack, Cogan, and Tracy—went 
into the parlor to smoke their cigars. 

After a short silence, Cogan suddenly broke in with: 
“Do you know, that business isn’t quite clear to me 
even now!” 

The others knew he referred to the case. They 
looked at him. 

“For instance: there is one question I should like an- 
swered,” he continued; “that is, if you have no objec¬ 
tion, Jack.” 

“Even without knowing what the question is, I have 
no objection. What is it, Tom?” 

“I should like to know why the dickens you did not 
assert your innocence, instead of—er—doing as you 
did.” 

“I did say that I was innocent,” replied Jack. “I 
told you, I told the lawyer, and also the alienist; I 
couldn’t do more, could I? But you fellows seemed to 
have the idea that I was guilty, and that I had com¬ 
mitted the deed because—” he laughed sadly—“well, be 
cause I was not quite sane!” 

“Ye-es,” admitted Cogan slowly, “I guess that’s 
right, old chap! I’ll own up; that was my opinion. 
But . . he stumbled in his effort to get at the real 


SOULS IN HELL 


375 


question in his mind—“did you know that you were 
shielding the real criminal?” 

Although he expected to be asked the question— 
sometime, he did not quite know what answer to make. 
That very question and what his answer should be 
had occupied his thoughts all the way from the court¬ 
house; and he had not arrived at a definite course of 
action. Now, he was nonplussed, and wondered how he 
ought to reply. 

“I’ll answer that, Tom,” said Mrs. Cogan, who had 
quietly come into the room and heard her husband’s 
question. She nodded and smiled at her brother’s 
quick glance of inquiry. Cogan wheeled round to look 
at her in amazement. 

“You remember Jack telling of the visions he had 
seen when on guard in the trenches—the two brothers 
in Ancient Carthage, the one disguised as a girl while 
his brother went to the war?” 

“Ye-es, I remember,” replied her husband. 

“And afterwards the younger brother joins the ar¬ 
my, and defends the trench while the elder one is lying 
wounded ?” 

Cogan looked from his wife to Jack, wondering what 
was coming. 

“Jack told us that he recognized himself in the 
young boy, but didn’t tell us who the other was; he 
only said that he had sacrificed himself for the younger 
brother. Coming up in the car this afternoon,” con¬ 
tinued Mrs. Cogan, “the same vision appeared to me. 
Not quite the same as Jack described, but enough like 
it for me to recognize the scene and the two brothers.” 

Cogan chewed on his cigar, wondering if by any 
chance his wife’s mind was affected by the strenuous 


376 


SOULS IN HELL 


experiences she had gone through during the past few 
weeks. Tracy was all ears, bending forward to listen 
intently. 

‘‘To make a long story short, I recognized myself 
in the elder brother,” announced Mrs. Cogan. 

“Well, supposing you did, what has that got to do 
with Jack and this—business?” asked her husband, 
looking mystified. 

“As I, in past time—in a former life, had sacrificed 
myself for Jack, now—in this life, the younger brother 
—who is Jack—felt it his duty to sacrifice himself 
for me, and so pay the ancient debt.” 

“Sacrifice himself for you!” Cogan shouted. 
“Where the devil do you come in? What have you 
done that he should feel it necessary to sacrifice himself 
for you?" 

He viewed with amazement Jack’s action of going 
to Mrs. Cogan, and grasping her shoulder to hearten 
her for the coming ordeal of her confession. 

Between sobs, and with broken accents, she bravely 
told of her acquaintance with Benton when she was 
studying elocution; and of the letters full of youthful 
gush she had written to him in return for his criticism 
and coaching in the dramatic art. Told, too, how 
the experience of Mary in Tracy’s story closely par¬ 
alleled her own, with the difference that she had sev¬ 
ered the acquaintanceship in time to save her honor. 

When she was relating the sufferings she had gone 
through after Benton’s advent in their home, she had 
great difficulty in keeping from breaking down. As 
she unfolded the tale of how the actor had threatened 
her with the letters; of her agony of spirit at the 
prospect of being separated from her husband and the 


SOULS IN HELL 


377 


loss of her child, Cogan, whose shoulders had been 
heaving suspiciously, suddenly broke down. Throw¬ 
ing himself on his knees at her side, he put his arms 
around her, and dropping his head on her lap, groaned 
like a wounded animal. 

As she went on, telling how she had made up her 
mind that the only way out of her difficulties was to 
shoot Benton, Cogan sprang to his feet, the tears 
streaming down his cheeks, his fists clenched. 

“Oh! Kitty! Kitty!” he sobbed, “why in hell 
didn’t you tell me all this then? I would have torn his 
black heart out with my bare hands. The damned 
scoundrel!” 

“I was afraid you would not believe my explana¬ 
tion,” she replied. 

“Huh! That’s the woman of it I” Cogan exclaimed 
in a tone of disgust. “After all these years of fight¬ 
ing and scrimping for you; putting up with insults 
from nincompoops that are not fit to wipe my shoes, so 
that I could earn the necessary money for you and the 
kid; working myself to a frazzle to make your lot a 
little easier; and after all—you were afraid to trust 
me! God bless the women!” he added, bitterly. 

“Don’t be harsh with me, Tom,” wailed his wife. 
“God knows I have paid dearly and enough for my 
foolishness.” 

“All right, old girl,” replied Cogan, his burst of 
temper subsiding. “I cannot expect to change wo¬ 
man’s nature any more than I can change a leopard’s 
spots!” 

“Isn’t it just possible, Tom,” asked Jack mildly, 
“that your present attitude is affected by the fact of 
the disclosure of Benton’s guilt? Perhaps you would not 


378 


SOULS IN HELL 


have been so ready to believe him a villain a few weeks 
ago. If I remember rightly, you would not accept 
my estimate of him.” 

“Perhaps not, Jack, old chap,” replied Cogan, apol¬ 
ogetically. “I must confess that I am prone to believe 
that all men are as clean-minded and honest as myself.” 
He turned to his wife, and patted her shoulder gently. 
“But go on, Kitty, girl; let’s have the rest while you 
are about it.” 

Seeing now that she need have no fear of her hus¬ 
band’s displeasure, Mrs. Cogan partly regained her 
composure. Continuing her narrative, she told them 
of her going down the road to wait for the actor, in¬ 
tending to shoot him; of being balked by the sudden 
passing of the automobile; the hearing of the shot, 
and the finding of the dead body. 

At this point Jack took up the thread, and told of 
the part he had taken up to the time when he was 
found at the side of the body and arrested. 

“Oh!” cried Cogan. “Now—now I see it all! You 
thought that Kitty had fired the shot, and you were 
willing to take the blame.” 

“It was the only thing I could do, Tom,” he said, 
simply. 

Cogan threw his arms around his shoulders, and with 
tears streaming out of his own eyes looked into Jack’s; 
his face expressing the thanks his quivering lips were 
unable to put into words. 

To break the tension, Tracy put the question: 
“Would you mind telling us why you kept silent, Mrs. 
Cogan; for you knew that you were not guilty of Ben¬ 
ton’s death? I am asking merely from a writer’s 
point of view.” 


SOULS IN HELL 


379 


“I was under the impression that she was guilty,” 
interposed Jack, quickly; ‘‘and told her to keep silent 
. . . for her child’s sake.” 

“The sad truth is, Mr. Tracy,” she said repentantly, 
“I was a coward! I was afraid of what Mr. Cogan 
would think and do when he heard of the letters.” 

Her husband smiled grimly, and turned to Tracy. 
“Now, old scout; tell us how you came to write that 
story.” 

The writer for the next hour or so held them spell¬ 
bound as he related the numerous happenings in his 
life which had forced him, beyond any question of 
doubt, to the point where he was assured that there 
was, beyond our physical senses, a world teeming with 
thinking entities—the so-called dead and other beings 
—who were in constant touch with us in this Earth- 
world. That there were men and women whose psychic 
faculties were developed to the stage where it was pos¬ 
sible for them to see and hear those living in the other 
and higher worlds. 

“Unfortunately,” he sighed, “I can only hear. I 
cannot see—as yet. I sincerely hope that my psychic 
sight will be opened before I pass out; for I have 
heard from others of the wonderful things to be seen.” 

“I have had both sight and hearing opened,” Jack 
asserted calmly, “but only on what were, evidently, spe¬ 
cial occasions and for special reasons. To what I 
have seen and heard is due the change in my attitude 
toward life. I used to be, as you know, a near-atheist; 
but that, I am glad to say, can never again be pos¬ 
sible; for I have seen and heard that which no physi¬ 
cal words can describe! 

“Much is said of bravery shown by a man in the 


380 


SOULS IN HELL 


heat and excitement of fighting; but sitting by one’s 
self in a cell for long hours, trying to keep one’s 
courage from failing so as not to be a coward, is a 
much severer test, I think. I am afraid I should have 
been unequal to the strain, but for the visions some 
kind friend enabled me to see and hear. Some kind 
friend on an upper plane who stimulated my psychic 
faculties, and so made it possible.” 

“Tell us, Jack!” whispered his sister, her arm en¬ 
circling his. 

“I have seen light so brilliant that the sun, by com¬ 
parison, would be a rushlight. I have seen forms so 
beautiful, words fail to express their loveliness. I 
have listened to music so grand and glorious as to 
be indescribable. I have heard a Voice, tender and 
loving as that of a young mother cooing to her first¬ 
born ; exquisite accents that fell like a healing balm 
on one’s tortured, weary soul; sad with the sadness 
and woe of lost souls; exultant as a vivid trumpet- 
blast with joy over the coming of a new helper in the 
sacred Cause of Humanity. A Voice that when IT 
spoke seemed to fill the whole Universe—as if there were 
nothing else existent but ITS Sound! 

“I have, in full consciousness , been lifted up to a 
plane of being where Time and Space did not exist; 
where Past, Present, and Future were the Eternal 
NOW. A plane from whence souls on Earth—in 
physical bodies, seemed but motes, dimly seen in dark¬ 
ness, sorrowing over puerile, childish troubles; not 
knowing that they were entangled in a web of their own 
illusions which prevented them realizing their own 
God-like attributes. Such an experience cannot be de- 


SOULS IN HELL 


381 


« 

scribed in physical plane language. The very best I 
can do is to say: I touched the hem of the Garment!” 

He seemed exalted by the recollections. 

“I am glad to have your corroborations of some of 
my experiences,” said Tracy; “but as I can only hear, 
and not see, I have to accept much on faith.” 

“I think I can honestly say: ‘I know!’” Jack said 
in a decisive tone. “I have had too many visions in 
broad daylight, when I was wide awake, to have them 
dismissed as ‘hallucinations;’ and you know that an 
ounce of knowledge is worth a ton of cynical unbelief.” 

Cogan who had listened thoughtfully to Jack’s ac¬ 
count of his visions, turned to Tracy to say, “Well, 
Tracy, old scout, I hope you will forgive me for hav¬ 
ing scoffed at your ‘higher thought’ business. It real¬ 
ly seems as if there are more things in heaven and 
earth . . .” 

“Than most people have any idea of,” interposed 
Jack, with a serious look. “Inspiration from above be¬ 
ing one of the greatest; and what the world today 
needs most!” 




Author’s note: Tracy—who knows more about these 
matters than I—says that as this story has a “Pro¬ 
logue,” logically, it should have an “Epilogue.” Hav¬ 
ing done what I think is my share of the work—writ¬ 
ing the account of the happenings, I suggested that 
he ought to write the epilogue. The following is his 
idea of it: 


SOULS IN HELL 


382 


EPILOGUE 


* * * # 

‘The kingdom of heaven is within you’— Jcsus. 

‘Nothing can work me damage but myself’— 

i St. Bernard. 

‘Men must reap the things they sow, 

Force from force must ever flow’— Shelley. 

‘Before beginning, and without an end, 

As space eternal, and as surety sure, 

Is fixed a Power divine which moves to good, 
Only its laws endure. 

It will not be contemned of any one; 

Who thwarts it loses, and who serves it gains; 
The hidden good it pays with peace and bliss, 
The hidden ill with pains. 

It knows not wrath nor pardon; utter-true 
Its measures mete, its faultless balance weighs; 
Times are as naught, tomorrow it will judge, 

Or after many days. 


SOULS IN HELL 


583 


The books say well, my brothers! each man’s lif« 
The outcome of his former living is; 

The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and 
woes, 

The bygone right breeds bliss. 

That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields! 
The sesamum was sesamum, the corn 
Was corn. The silence and the darkness knew; 
So is a man’s fate born ’—Sir Edwin Arnold —• 

Light of Asia. 

‘What thou wouldst not like to be done to you, 
Do not to others: this is the fundamental law’—• 

Hillel. 

‘Your only saviour is your deeds’— Zoroaster. 

‘Work out your own salvation. Whatsoever a 
man soweth, that shall he also reap’— 

St. Paul. 

‘Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon 

thee ,’—J esus. 


FINIS 
















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